


Blood on the Ground

by GoldenUsagi



Series: Damned [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Community: deancasbigbang, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-30
Updated: 2012-10-30
Packaged: 2017-11-17 15:26:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 34,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/553064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenUsagi/pseuds/GoldenUsagi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to Damned. S4 canon AU. Dean’s only been back for a day, and the world’s already going to Hell. The Apocalypse is in motion, Sam has a secret, and Castiel is gone. Unfortunately, it gets worse from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood on the Ground

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by claudiapriscus, ever-neutral, and pocochina. Written for the DCBB 2012. Original masterpost at: http://deancasbigbang.livejournal.com/100362.html

 

Prologue

  
  
_“I will come for you, Dean,” Castiel said. “I promise you.”  
  
Dean managed to nod. He had no idea how he’d earned an angel following him into the Pit. The thought came that he probably hadn’t. But he was going to receive it.  
  
Castiel remained motionless. It occurred to Dean that despite there being no other options, Castiel wasn’t going to move against him without his permission.  
  
Dean swallowed. Then he clenched his jaw and looked Castiel square in the eyes. “Do it.”_

*****

  
  
“Do it.”  
  
Castiel shifted even closer to Dean, and Sam suddenly found all of his attention drawn to the bloody sword that Castiel still held.  
  
For one horrible second, Sam thought Castiel was going to stab Dean. But then the blade was simply gone. Castiel brought his hand up and rested it lightly against the side of Dean’s head. It was an odd gesture, and surprise flickered across Dean’s features before—  
  
Dean dropped like a stone.  
  
Sam took a step forward; he couldn’t help it. “Is he—?”  
  
Dean was crumpled at Castiel’s feet, appearing merely unconscious.  
  
“His soul has departed,” Castiel said.  
  
“What—what did you do?”  
  
“I gave him an aneurysm.”  
  
Castiel stared down at Dean momentarily. There was no expression on his face that Sam could discern.  
  
“There are things I must do,” Castiel said, looking up. “I’ll return shortly.”  
  
Then he vanished, leaving Sam alone with the body of his brother.  
  
Sam stood in place for several moments, the panic and rush of the last few minutes fading as he put himself back together. And that was when it really hit him.  
  
Dean was dead.  
  
Sam shut that thought down as quickly as possible. He couldn’t—not here. There would be time for that later.  
  
He turned to the nearest window and slowly pulled back the curtains. The demons that had been in the yard were gone. After cautiously looking again, he moved to the front door and started out. He could get Bobby from the empty house across the street and they could move Dean.  
  
There was suddenly a girl standing on the sidewalk. He skidded to a halt on the front steps.  
  
She was thirteen or so, and her dark hair was in a ponytail. She smiled at him and then pouted. “I guess I missed the party. Rats! I really wanted to see Dean turn into puppy chow.”  
  
“Lilith,” Sam growled.  
  
“I was going to have such a fun surprise for you, but it got ruined.” She glanced down at herself. “This isn’t exactly what I wanted. It’s too in between. To have the most fun, you have to be a little girl or a grownup, don’t you think?”  
  
Sam pulled the knife. “Here without your demons?”  
  
“Oh, I sent them away,” she said brightly. “I don’t need them anymore. I already got Dean, and now I just need you.”  
  
She smiled, and her palm exploded with light.  
  
Nothing happened.  Lilith looked stunned.  
  
Sam felt a grim pang of satisfaction. “That doesn’t seem to work on me.”  
  
He moved toward her.  
  
“No,” Lilith shouted, stamping her foot. She lifted her hand again. “Stay back!”  
  
“Dean’s dead because of you.” Sam raised the knife.  
  
She smoked out, and the girl fell to the sidewalk.  
  
The next instant, the door to the house across the street opened, and Bobby stepped out.  
  
“Come on!” Sam shouted, waving at him. He turned to go back inside as Bobby crossed the street.  
  
Sam heard Bobby coming in after him, and then they were both in the living room looking down at Dean.  
  
“Oh, Sam,” Bobby said, voice thick. “I’m sorry.”  
  
“Later,” Sam said. “We have a plan. Help me move him.”  
  
Bobby looked at him like he’d lost his grip on reality. “You have a _plan_?” Then his face softened. “Sam, Dean’s gone. Your brother’s dead.”  
  
“He won’t be.” Sam gave Bobby a look that left no room for argument. “Now help me.”  
  
\-----  
  
They were an hour out of town when Bobby put his brakes on and came to a stop at the side of the road, signaling for Sam to do the same. Sam pulled the Impala up behind Bobby’s car and got out.  
  
“All right,” Bobby said, closing his door. “Let’s hear it.”  
  
“Hear what?”  
  
“Whatever fool thing you’re thinking of doing. I didn’t press it at the house cause we needed to get the hell outta Dodge, but now I wanna hear it.”  
  
“I’m not doing anything. Castiel is. The angel,” Sam clarified.  
  
“Dean said that he couldn’t help.”  
  
“Well, he changed his mind. He showed up and killed the hellhound, said that he couldn’t stop Dean from going to Hell but that he could— _would_ bring Dean back. Himself. Like, he’s actually going to Hell to get him.”  
  
Sam thought that should have gotten more of a reaction from Bobby than a blank look.  
  
“Assuming he doesn’t change his mind again,” Bobby said.  
  
“He won’t,” Sam said firmly.  
  
Bobby gave him a hard stare. “What does he want in exchange?”  
  
“Nothing.”  
  
“Boy, do I look like I was born yesterday?”  
  
“He—I don’t know, he _likes_ Dean.”  
  
“You telling me he’s just gonna waltz into Hell for nothing?”  
  
“He wants Dean to be alive. I don’t think that’s nothing to him,” Sam said. “I think they were friends. I teased Dean about it once.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, you’re the one who asked if Dean had found him again.”  
  
“Because I thought there might be a lead there,” Bobby said. “But I sure wouldn’t have told you to depend on him.”  
  
“We weren’t. Dean’s dead either way. We couldn’t stop it. But Castiel can bring him _back_.”  
  
“Just like that? No stings attached?”  
  
“What are you getting at?” Sam threw his hands up.  
  
“If something seems too good to be true, it usually is.”  
  
“Would you rather me go to a crossroads?” Sam demanded, his voice rising. “Cause that’s where I’d be right now otherwise. There are worse ways of bringing Dean back than letting Castiel do it! Dean _is_ coming back, one way or another.”  
  
“Boy, if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking—”  
  
“I’m not thinking anything! I wanted a miracle and I got one! That’s what this is, Bobby—a _miracle_. From an _angel_. This is a good thing. We finally got one good thing, don’t we deserve that by now?”  
  
Bobby sighed, shaking his head. He leveled a stare at Sam. “This angel. Do you trust him?”  
  
“I—I never even met him before tonight,” Sam admitted. “He only talked to Dean. He only _wanted_ to talk to Dean. Dean trusted him, if that means anything.” It meant everything, really. Sam laughed, trying not to cry.  
  
Bobby was silent.  
  
Then, “All right,” Bobby said. “All right. So what now?”  
  
Sam took a deep breath. “We bury him.”  
  
Bobby glanced toward the Impala, where Dean was. “You know he should be salted and burned.”  
  
“This isn’t the usual.”  
  
“Yeah, I didn’t figure. Well, we still need to do it fast, since we don’t exactly have the option of using a funeral home.” Bobby paused. “Might as well keep going. I’ll make some calls.”  
  
Sam nodded, and a moment later they were both back in their cars and heading in the general direction of Sioux Falls. The Impala seemed too quiet. Sam fiddled with the tape deck, but almost as soon as the music started playing, he switched it off. He couldn’t listen to any of Dean’s albums right now. But he also couldn’t find it in himself to listen to anything else with Dean in the backseat.  
  
He drove in silence.  
  
An hour later, Bobby called him, saying he knew a hunter with a remote patch of land in Illinois. The guy owed him a favor. He’d managed to pull some strings with someone else, and there would be a pine box waiting for them at an abandoned gas station that was along the way.  
  
They could have Dean buried by sunrise.  
  
Sam nearly ran off the road when Castiel appeared in the passenger seat.  
  
Jesus. If Castiel had pulled that with Dean, no wonder Dean had been jumpy about him in the beginning.  
  
“I require your assistance,” Castiel said.  
  
“Right now?”  
  
“The sooner I can leave, the better.”  
  
“Right. Um, what do you need me for?”  
  
“Leaving this vessel as it is.”  
  
Which explained nothing, Sam thought. “Can it wait until after we bury Dean?”  
  
“Very well.”  
  
“There’s not a problem burying him, is there?” Sam asked. “I don’t know what else to do.”  
  
“Burying is fine.”  
  
Sam focused on the road. “Bobby wanted him salted and burned.”  
  
“I’d prefer you didn’t,” Castiel said. “That would make things more difficult.”  
  
“But it wouldn’t stop you? Not that we’re doing that—I’m just asking.”  
  
“No. It wouldn’t stop me. Bodies can be remade. Bodies are nothing.”  
  
Castiel glanced in the backseat, and Sam wondered what he saw. Did he see Dean at all? It was just a body. Sam knew better than anyone that it was just a body, that Dean was somewhere else right now, but the body was still his brother.  
  
“Do you want to help us bury him?” Sam asked.  
  
Castiel frowned. “Why would I?”  
  
Then he was gone.

*****

  
  
Knowing that Dean was coming back didn’t make it any easier to move Dean’s body. Didn’t make it any easier to clean out his pockets or take off his jewelry. Putting the lid on the coffin was the hardest thing Sam had ever done.  
  
He managed not to cry until after he and Bobby had replaced the grave dirt and Bobby had driven off. Sam had promised to follow behind him, to stay for a few days until he got things sorted out.  
  
But right now, it didn’t matter what was going to happen, only what had happened. His brother was in a box in the ground.  
  
Sam sank to his knees, and the dam broke.

*

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**********

 

The only word for what Castiel had done for him was ‘saved’. Dean knew he should be letting go by now, but he didn’t care. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to thank you.”  
  
Castiel’s grip tightened. “Don’t mention it.”  
  
A choked laugh escaped Dean’s throat. “Cas, I think this goes way past ‘don’t mention it’.”  
  
“Still,” Castiel said solemnly, “you shouldn’t mention it.”  
  
Dean couldn’t help the grin that spread over his face. After another second, he broke the hug and took a step back.  
  
Castiel’s hand lingered on his arm before he let it fall. “It’s good to see you, Dean.”  
  
He was still looking at Dean with such a genuine expression. But there was also something arch to it, like he knew exactly what he’d pulled off.  
  
“You’re pleased with yourself, aren’t you?” Dean said.  
  
“A bit, yes.”  
  
Dean shook his head, clapping a hand to Castiel’s shoulder. “You’re something else, man.”  
  
“I believe we’ve established that.” The corner of his mouth turned up.  
  
Dean smiled and then turned to look at his grave and the area beyond it. “Well, Sam picked a nice place to plant me. Least it used to be.”  
  
Castiel surveyed the demolished forest, not seeming particularly surprised or concerned by the effects of Dean’s resurrection. “I expended a great deal of energy.”  
  
“It’s like a nuke went off,” Dean muttered. “Where the hell are we, anyway?”  
  
“Illinois.” Castiel blinked, like he had just realized something. “You’ll want to see Sam, of course.”  
  
“Yeah, need to get to a payphone or—”  
  
The change was so abrupt it was dizzying. One moment he was outside, the next, he was in a motel room, Castiel’s hand falling away from his shoulder.  
  
“Oh my God, Dean!”  
  
Sam was scrambling off the bed and launching himself at Dean. Dean barely had time to register what had happened before Sam caught him in a bone-crushing hug.  
  
He wrapped his arms around Sam’s back, his fingers digging into the fabric of his brother’s shirt.  
  
“You’re really here,” he heard Sam say. “You’re back.”  
  
“Yeah,” Dean said. “Yeah. Like I never left, huh?”  
  
After a long moment, Sam released him. But he kept his hands on Dean’s shoulders as he stood in place and took him in. Sam was blinking quickly, and Dean realized he was about to cry.  
  
But he didn’t. He just grinned like today was the best damn day of his entire life.  
  
Sam turned to Castiel. “Just… thank you.”  
  
Castiel nodded. Then his eyes slid back to Dean. Sam was also staring at him, a hundred questions written on his face.  
  
Dean could sense what was coming next, and he decided to head Sam off at the pass. “I’m freaking starving.”  
  
Sam’s exultation morphed into disbelief. “Dude, seriously?”  
  
“What? I need food,” Dean said. “Things are back to normal, Sam. Unless you wanna hug it out some more?”  
  
“I— There’s a burger joint right down the road,” he said, giving in.  
  
“Great. Let’s go.”  
  
“Dean, you’re covered in dirt.”  
  
“Then you go get us something.”  
  
Sam looked—well, not hurt, but a bit miffed. Dean couldn’t blame him, but it was all suddenly too much. He’d barely been out of Hell for five minutes, and he hadn’t had time to process it, much less pull himself together. And he knew he couldn’t talk about whatever Sam was going to ask him.  
  
“Sam,” Castiel said. “I need to speak to Dean alone for a moment. My apologies, I should have done so beforehand.”  
  
Sam relaxed a bit. “Okay,” he said, though he was still reluctant.  
  
Dean raised an eyebrow. Sam had balked at going to get him something to eat, but he was ready to step out without a real explanation from Castiel. “Still go starry-eyed for angels, Sammy?”  
  
Sam gave him a bitchy look. “I do favors for people who bring my brother back from Hell. It’s called being nice.”  
  
“I’m nice,” Dean protested.  
  
“ _And_ I’m just going to the parking lot, to find a pizza place that delivers.” Sam grabbed his phone. As he opened the door, he paused, catching Castiel’s eyes. Castiel stared back and gave a minuscule nod in return.  
  
When the door closed, Dean moved to face Castiel. He knew Castiel didn’t have a damn thing to talk to him about. Sam might have thought he was doing Castiel some strange courtesy, but Dean was better at reading him. If Castiel had actually had something to say, he would have said it at the grave; he had only spoken up when Dean started trying to distract Sam.  
  
“It didn’t occur to me that you might prefer some time,” Castiel said. “I’m sorry.”  
  
“Hey, I’m not complaining. So, uh, is that what it’s always like for you when you leave? Just—boom, somewhere else?”  
  
“That’s how you would see it, yes.”  
  
“Huh.” Dean shifted.  
  
Castiel was watching him calmly. If he knew what Dean was about to ask, he didn’t show it.  
  
He might as well bite the bullet. “Do you know what happened in Hell?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Dean had figured as much. But he didn’t realize how much he’d been hoping for the opposite answer until the word ‘yes’ was there, hanging in the air between them.  
  
“Yeah, I guess an angel would.”  
  
“I’m not speaking generally, Dean.”  
  
It took Dean a moment to process Castiel’s meaning. He shook his head. “Guess you’d know that, too. Considering that’s how you found me.” He tried to sound casual, but the words came out hollow. It would have been so much easier if he never had to look at anyone who knew.  
  
“Bet you’re disappointed,” Dean continued, falling back on anger. Anger was easy. “Not really worth your time, was I?”  
  
A part of Dean knew that the last thing he should be doing was pushing Castiel, not with what he owed him. But Castiel shouldn’t be standing there impassively, like nothing had changed, like it didn’t matter. It had to matter. If this was going to be it, they might as well just get it over with.  
  
Castiel was studying him with an unusual focus, like he was trying to decipher the words Dean wasn’t saying. “Ah. You don’t think you deserved saving.” He stated it like a fact. His eyes narrowed slightly. “And you expect judgment.”  
  
Dean snorted. “You told me I was damned when I met you, Cas.”  
  
“That was my mistake.”  
  
“You sure you didn’t just make another?”  
  
Castiel returned his gaze evenly. “I went to Hell to find you, Dean. I knew you then, and I know you now.”  
  
“You know me, huh?”  
  
“I’ve held your soul.”  
  
Dean couldn’t find a reply to that. He didn’t want to find a reply to that. Finally, he just nodded.  
  
Then he cleared his throat. “Cas, one thing.”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“This never happened. Sam’s gonna ask, and that’s what I’m gonna tell him.” Dean plastered a fake smile on his face. “I don’t remember a damn thing as far as he’s concerned.”  
  
He half expected a well-meaning protest. But all Castiel said was, “That’s your decision.”  
  
“So if Sam asks you—you found me, grabbed me, and that was it.”  
  
Castiel frowned, puzzled. “That’s actually what happened.”  
  
Dean chuckled without humor, trying not to shake his head. “Yeah, and that’s all you know,” he said pointedly. “You don’t know what happened before you got there. If he starts asking you anything about Hell, you don’t tell him jack, got it?”  
  
“As you wish.”  
  
Sam was going to bring it up soon, probably in that concerned way of his. Dean knew him better than to think that he wouldn’t try to get him to talk about it.  
  
He turned to the sink, washing the dirt off his hands and splashing water on his face. He’d take a real shower as soon as he ate. Dean realized he really was starving, not to mention thirsty. He ripped the liner off one of the plastic cups by the sink, filling it up and draining it three times. Then he wiped his hands on the towel.  
  
His knuckles were scraped and torn from pushing his way out of the coffin. His fingertips had likewise bled in several places, and there was blood under his nails. Dean found himself staring at it.  
  
Castiel was beside him. One of his hands reached up to touch Dean’s, and the wounds closed themselves like they had never been there.  
  
“You think that makes it better?” Dean asked, not looking at him.  
  
“It fixes your hand,” Castiel said simply.  
  
The door opened, and Sam entered the room again. He had Dean’s duffel over his shoulder.  
  
Dean stepped away from both the sink and Castiel, a clear signal to Sam that they were done talking.  
  
“Food will be here in twenty,” Sam said. He dumped the duffel on the unused bed. “It’s just like you left it. Well, I washed it all.”  
  
“Dude, you did my laundry. I should come back from the dead more often.”  
  
“You’ll probably want this back.” Sam reached around his neck, and Dean noticed that Sam was wearing his necklace. He took it off and handed it to Dean.  
  
Dean felt the familiar weight in his hand before he put the amulet over his head. “Thanks.” When Sam nodded and started to turn, Dean said, “You forgetting something, Sammy?” He smirked. “Keys to my baby.”  
  
Sam grinned to himself, shaking his head. But he fished the keys out of his pocket and tossed them to Dean.  
  
“Now we’re talking,” Dean said.  
  
Sam paused, shifting his weight. “Dean,” he said haltingly. “Are you—okay?”  
  
“You mean how was Hell?” Dean shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t remember. I remember Cas showing up at the house, then nothing. Then there was Cas again. That’s it.”  
  
“But that’s—that’s good, right?” Sam shoved his hands in his pockets. “I mean, it has to be good. Not like anyone would want to remember, right?”  
  
“Not unless it’s full of chicks in leather bikinis.” Dean forced a smile. “In which case I’d definitely be missing out. I’m gonna grab a shower before the pizza comes.” He picked a fresh change of clothes from his duffel and went into the bathroom.  
  
Dean stood in front of the mirror for a minute. He looked exactly the same. He thought he’d see something different somehow. But it was only his face, looking back.  
  
When he stripped, he discovered a burn on his shoulder in the shape of a handprint. He stared it for several seconds. Dean supposed it could have something to do with Hell. But he thought there was a better chance that it had something to do with Castiel.  
  
His shower was long and hot, and Dean came out of the bathroom feeling refreshed. It was ridiculously easy to pick his life back up like nothing had happened. The pizza came, and Dean ate most of it himself. He and Sam crashed on the couch, watching TV and drinking beer for the rest of the evening. Sam sat a bit too close, and Dean caught his brother looking his way more than once, like he needed to keep making sure Dean was real. Other than that, it was business as usual.  
  
Well, except for Castiel. Dean hadn’t exactly expected Castiel to drop him off and disappear the next instant, but it was strange that he was still here. He had never stuck around for longer than an hour before, but he’d been sitting silently at the table the whole evening. Every time Dean happened to look at him, Castiel’s expression was distant, like he was listening to something a world away.  
  
Sam seemed oblivious to the fact that Castiel had installed himself in the motel room. But Sam was clearly too thrilled with Castiel to question anything he did.  
  
Dean started to once, but couldn’t come up with anything that didn’t sound ungrateful, considering. He didn’t particularly care if Castiel stayed, but Dean couldn’t figure out why he hadn’t gone. He wasn’t even talking to them; he was simply there.  
  
Castiel must have guessed his thoughts, because he said, “I enjoy your company.”  
  
Dean gave him a nod.  
  
When his eyes flicked in the direction of the table on the next commercial break, Castiel was staring at him. It was close to the way Sam kept looking at him, except that when Dean caught Sam at it, Sam would glance away like he’d really been looking at something else. Castiel just stared back.  
  
It occurred to Dean that he had no idea how long Castiel had been watching him. Dean nearly snapped that he should take a picture so it would last, but the words died on his lips. Castiel’s eyes never left him, but his face was grim, almost resigned.  
  
Dean broke the gaze, unnerved, and concentrated on the TV again.  
  
They were definitely going to have a talk later.  
  
\-----  
  
Dean woke in the middle of the night. The TV show he’d fallen asleep to had been turned off, and he knew without looking that Sam was asleep in the other bed.  
  
He managed not to jump when he saw Castiel sitting on the edge of his bed, barely visible in the darkness.  
  
Dean huffed, half in exasperation, half relief. “This is creepy, even for you.”  
  
“We need to talk.”  
  
“This second?”  
  
“Since you’re awake.”  
  
Dean groaned, but pushed himself up. He looked at Castiel expectantly. “Well?”  
  
“Not here.”  
  
“No wonder Sam thinks you don’t like him,” Dean muttered.  
  
Castiel ignored the comment. “We need to talk. What you tell your brother is up to you.”  
  
Right. Then this was going to be about Hell. Dean really wasn’t up for any conversation about that. “Man, can’t it wait?”  
  
Castiel looked away. “I’m not—Dean, I won’t be here much longer. They’re coming.”  
  
Dean had no idea what that meant, but he figured it couldn’t be good.  
  
“We can talk in the car,” Dean said. He was still dressed, and he dug his keys out of his pocket as he stood. Castiel followed him out to the parking lot.  
  
Dean unlocked the car and slid in. If Sam happened to wake up and miss him, he’d only have to look outside to see where Dean was.  
  
Castiel closed the passenger side door.  
  
Dean waited a moment, but when Castiel still didn’t speak, he said, “What’s going on with you, Cas?”  
  
“Angels are coming.” His eyes met Dean’s. “They’ll be here as soon as they can acquire vessels.”  
  
Dean wasn’t sure where Castiel was going with this. But he got a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach when a thought occurred to him. “Are they coming for you?”  
  
Castiel glanced down. “Yes.”  
  
“Because of what you did,” Dean realized. “Cause of me.” That was just the way things went. He shook his head, glancing out the window. “Because of what you did for me.”  
  
“Yes.” Castiel paused. “And no.”  
  
He didn’t elaborate, and Dean studied him in the silence. The neon lights from the motel’s sign cast their colors into the Impala’s interior, and Castiel was lit by alternating blue and green as the sign flashed.  
  
“Dean, there were other angels in Hell. They were coming for you.”  
  
“What? Why?”  
  
“I don’t know.”  
  
“That doesn’t make any sense.” Dean frowned. “Why would a bunch of angels be trying to get me out of Hell?”  
  
“Perhaps you were chosen.”  
  
“Dude, chosen for what?”  
  
“I don’t know.” Castiel paused again. “Human souls have been raised before, when they were needed. When there was work to be done in the name of God. But such things have only occurred a handful of times.”  
  
“And these ‘chosen’ just do whatever you guys tell them to, is that it?”  
  
“It is considered an honor.”  
  
“I’ll bet. Look, even if I buy all that, why me?”  
  
“No one but God and the prophets know why souls are chosen,” Castiel said, turning to stare out the windshield. “But you are, as you say, a hunter.”  
  
“So? There’s a hundred other guys out there just like me. Killing evil sons of bitches is kind of in the job description.”  
  
“Dean, I don’t know.”  
  
“Well, can you find out?”  
  
“Probably not. They’ll come for me before they come for you. I don’t know why you interest Heaven.” He hesitated. “But I do know what my fate will be. There is only one punishment for disobedience.”  
  
“So you’re just going to wait for them to take you away?”  
  
“No. But neither will I fight them. They’re my brothers.” Castiel met his gaze. “I accept this, Dean. I knew what I was risking, and I don’t regret my choice. However, I believe it will be better if I’m found alone.”  
  
“Cas, this is messed up. Stay here, we’ll figure something out. We can help.”  
  
“There’s nothing you can do.”  
  
Castiel was stoic.  
  
“You’ve known the whole time, haven’t you?” Dean said. “Ever since you pulled me out topside. You knew they were coming for you.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“And you thought a great way to spend your last night was just sitting around in a motel?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Castiel’s answer was so easy that it took Dean by surprise.  
  
It must have shown on his face, because Castiel looked almost amused and said:  
  
“I gave everything to save you, Dean. I could think of nothing I would rather do than see you happy.”  
  
“Damn it, Cas,” Dean said. But there was no feeling behind it. That’s why Castiel had been so eerie tonight. He had remained not because he had nothing else to do, but because he didn’t expect to see Dean again.  
  
“There’s more. The others speak of Lucifer trying to escape from Hell. It’s why they’ve arrived.”  
  
“Thought they were here for me and you.”  
  
“It’s connected somehow. I don’t know.” Castiel exhaled, glancing up at nothing. “Perhaps that’s what you were chosen for.”  
  
“Chosen, right.” Dean laughed. “Whoever’s doing the choosing sure fucked that one up.”  
  
Castiel didn’t respond.  
  
“Okay, answer me this, then,” Dean said. “If there really were angels sent to get me out of Hell, why would they be after you for getting there first? You only did what they were trying to do.”  
  
“My mere presence here is rebellion. That’s the only thing that will matter to Heaven.”  
  
“Like I said, Cas, Heaven kind of sounds like it sucks. How long do you have?”  
  
“I should go shortly.”  
  
“Right.” Dean leaned back in his seat. “Well, until then, I’m good here if you are.”  
  
Castiel almost smiled. “I’d like that.”  
  
Silence fell between them.  
  
After a minute, Dean cleared his throat. “Hey, uh, what’s with this burn on my arm?”  
  
“Human bodies are not equipped to handle grace.”  
  
Dean thought back to when Castiel had mentioned grace before, when they were trapped in the police station. It seemed so long ago. “Like eyes burning in skulls?”  
  
Castiel nodded. “Any contact with our true selves damages you, unless you’re one of the few who can truly perceive us.”  
  
“Then why could I see you in Hell?”  
  
“You weren’t in a body.”  
  
Dean paused, considering. “So that was the real you, huh? That—” he broke off, unable to find a word for the thing that had come to collect him. “ _That_.”  
  
Castiel seemed amused again. “Yes.”  
  
Before Dean could manage a response, Castiel frowned, his eyes darting upward. “I have to go.”  
  
“I—yeah.”  
  
“Goodbye, Dean.”  
  
Dean couldn’t bring himself to say it in return. “See you, Cas.”  
  
Castiel disappeared.  
  
Dean sat in the car alone. Finally, he went back inside.

*****

  
  
He and Sam set out for Bobby’s the next morning. It was a good twenty hours away, but as there wasn’t much reason to push it, they would make an easy two-day drive out of it. Dean figured that since he’d been dead for three months, dropping in on people who were practically family was the thing to do after he got out.  
  
Once Dean was comfortably settled into the drive, he said, “Cas left last night.”  
  
“Oh?” Sam said, distracted. “Well, I figured he must have.”  
  
Dean sighed. If Castiel was right and something was going to happen, they needed to be ready. “He said some things.”  
  
“Like what?”  
  
“For starters, he said there are other angels here.”  
  
That got Sam’s attention. “Really?”  
  
“Seems like it.”  
  
“Huh.” Sam got a thoughtful look on his face. It was the same look that he’d had last year when Dean had first told him about seeing Castiel.  
  
“Cas didn’t think it was so great,” Dean said.  
  
“How could more angels coming to Earth be a bad thing?”  
  
“And here I thought maybe you’d gotten over your angel worship.”  
  
“That was before one of them decided to bring you back to life,” Sam said. “Yeah, I was disappointed for a while there, you’re right. Back when you said that Castiel didn’t care, wouldn’t help. I always thought of angels as forces for good, and the idea that maybe they weren’t, yeah, it bothered me.”  
  
“And now?”  
  
“Castiel is good. Why wouldn’t the rest of them be?”  
  
“Look, I don’t know. Maybe they are, who knows? But think about this—the last time they were here was two thousand years ago.” Dean gave Sam a pointed look. “Whatever they are, they’re not coming now to just sight-see.”  
  
“You think there’s more to this.” Sam’s eyebrows went up. “You mean Castiel thinks there’s more to this?”  
  
“The name Lucifer might have come up.”  
  
Sam was quiet for a moment, obviously realizing there was something Dean wasn’t saying. “And?”  
  
“Cas isn’t coming back,” Dean said flatly.  
  
“But he could help—”  
  
“He’s fucked because he already did help.” Dean stared straight ahead at the road. “What he pulled for me brought a shit-storm from Heaven down on his head.”  
  
“So is that it?”  
  
“Not quite. Apparently there were other angels sent to get me out of Hell. No idea why, but they don’t do that unless they want you for something.” Dean gave Sam a mirthless grin. “So whatever the hell is happening—we’re probably gonna end up right in the middle of it.”

*****

  
  
Bobby wouldn’t let him in the door until he drank from the holy water.  
  
Dean drained the flask with a good-natured grin. It was Sam who rolled his eyes and said, “Seriously?”  
  
“Can’t be too careful,” Bobby said. He eyed Sam, nodding in Dean’s direction. “You telling me you spent the last two days with him and you didn’t make him drink anything?”  
  
“Considering that he was hand delivered by an angel, no, I didn’t.”  
  
“Hey, I’m standing right here,” Dean said.  
  
“Well, get in here already,” Bobby said. Dean stepped into the house, and Bobby pulled him into a quick hug. “It’s good to see you, boy.”  
  
“Good to be seen.”  
  
Bobby asked him the same things that Sam had, and Dean found the same lies rolling easily off his tongue. He didn’t remember anything from Hell.  
  
Eventually, he and Sam ended up in the living room alone after Bobby went to bed. Dean was doing absolutely nothing but nursing a beer, and Sam was idly flipping through some of Bobby’s books.  
  
Sam’s phone went off. He hit the button to send it to voicemail.  
  
After another minute, it started ringing again. Sam hit the button again.  
  
“Sounds like someone wants to get a hold of you, Sam.”  
  
Sam’s back was to him, but Dean saw his shoulders tense. “It’s nothing.”  
  
Dean grinned. “Nothing, huh? Seems like Sammy made himself a new friend while I was away.”  
  
The phone rang again. Sam turned it off.  
  
“No need to be embarrassed.” Dean chuckled. “Dude, if she wants to hook up, go for it.”  
  
Sam made a choked noise. “I’m not hooking up with her, believe me.” He turned around. “It was Ruby, all right?”  
  
For a moment, Dean didn’t say anything. “Ruby? _Ruby_? Why the hell are you still talking to her? Better yet, why is she still alive?”  
  
Sam stood up. He was looming over Dean, a sure sign that he was gearing up for an argument. “Because I need her.”  
  
“For what?” Dean snapped, standing up himself. “Her only card to play was that she could get me out of going to Hell, and guess what, she couldn’t.”  
  
“We need to kill Lilith, or have you forgotten that? She might not hold your contract anymore, but she still wants me dead.”  
  
“So? We’ve got the knife. We’ll kill Lilith on our own—we sure as hell don’t need Ruby to do it.”  
  
“Dean, she can help us. She hears things that we don’t. She knows where demons are—”  
  
“Probably because she’s in on it!”  
  
“Then what does she want?” Sam asked, spreading his arms. “Cause she could have killed me a dozen times over by now. The only thing she’s done is help me the same as she always has. She doesn’t want Lilith to win any more than we do.”  
  
Dean stared him down, but Sam didn’t give an inch.  
  
“Damn it, Sam.” He sat back down, slumping into the chair and taking a long drink.  
  
“So… that’s it?” Sam asked.  
  
“I guess. I don’t like it. I didn’t like it before. But there doesn’t seem to be any getting rid of the bitch. Unless the angels come—she’ll be gone then.” Dean laughed. “That’d be a silver lining.”  
  
Sam’s expression didn’t change. Apparently he didn’t see the humor of that scenario.  
  
Dean glared at him. “Is there anything else I should know?”  
  
“No.”

*****

  
  
The next day was uneventful.  
  
The day after that, the dead came after them.  
  
They managed to put the Witnesses back to rest, but Bobby discovered after the fact that they weren’t the only ones who had been attacked. None of the other nearby hunters had answered their phones, and it was natural to assume the worst. They planned to head out tomorrow and see if anyone was left.  
  
While Sam was reviewing Biblical prophecies, Dean related to Bobby what little Castiel had said.  
  
“That would fit right in with the Witnesses,” Bobby said.  
  
“Does this mean we’re actually at the End of Days? Angels coming to Earth, Lucifer escaping from Hell, prophecies from Revelations?”  
  
“Unless you’ve got a better idea. But I sure would like to talk to that angel.”  
  
“Join the club.” Dean lowered his voice. “Did you know that Ruby was still around?”  
  
“I know Sam goes with her sometimes. He says she gets leads on Lilith.”  
  
“You trust her?”  
  
“Hell, no. Bobby Singer, paranoid bastard—have we met? But as far as I can tell, she seems to be useful, and we don’t got a whole lot of useful.” Bobby shook his head. “The most I ever talked to her was before you died. I shot her, she fixed the Colt, and that was it.”  
  
Dean made a non-committal noise. “How—how was Sam while I was gone? Was he okay?”  
  
“He was about like you’d expect for the first day or so. But after that—” Bobby hesitated. “Don’t get me wrong, he missed you something terrible, but he wasn’t broken up about it anymore. He was _sure_ you were coming back, and nothing was gonna make him think otherwise. No matter what else he was doing, part of him was waitin’ on you.”  
  
Dean nodded, absently licking his lips. Sam had been as fine as he could be. That was good. “So he kept busy?”  
  
“He did hunts—your basic, straightforward stuff, plus demons when he found them. And of course he tried to track down Lilith. But half the time, he was here, helping me with the panic room.”  
  
“You two built the panic room?”  
  
Bobby shrugged, giving Dean a smirk. “We had to do something while you were dead.”

*****

  
  
Dean woke up dreaming.  
  
That was the only way he knew how to describe it. There was a certain feeling he was starting to recognize—he wasn’t having a dream, he was in a dream someone else had created.  
  
There was a man in a suit standing in Bobby’s kitchen.  
  
Dean stood up and walked over.  
  
The man smiled. “Dean, Dean, Dean. This _is_ a treat.”  
  
Dean stopped in the middle of the kitchen and crossed his arms. “Are you an angel?”  
  
“I’m Zachariah. Castiel’s superior.”  
  
“Where’s Cas?”  
  
“Castiel is busy at the moment.” Zachariah gave him a once-over. “So you’re the one all this trouble was for.”  
  
“What do you want?”  
  
“We have work for you. You’ve got a bright future in store.”  
  
“What work?”  
  
“All in good time,” Zachariah said, giving him an oily smile. “Let us worry about that right now.”  
  
“And what am I supposed to worry about? Almost getting my heart ripped out? That’s all part of this, right? The Witnesses? The Apocalypse? Something about Lucifer? Am I getting close?”  
  
A scowl crossed Zachariah’s face. “Castiel has been freer with his words than I thought.”  
  
“Where is he? What did you do?”  
  
“Castiel is no longer a concern of yours, nor you of his.”  
  
“Yeah?” Dean stepped toward him. “Then let’s skip to the part where you tell me what the hell is going on. Why’d you pick me?”  
  
“No need to bother with all of that,” Zachariah said, waving a hand. “We’ll need your help from time to time, but just sit back and enjoy the ride. You’ll do everything you’re destined to do.”  
  
“What do you want me to do? Fight? Hell, I’ll fight. I’ll kill every demon that crosses my path. I’d be doing that anyway. But if you think you’re gonna say jump and I’m gonna ask how high, buddy, you’ve got another thing coming.”  
  
Zachariah’s expression turned into one of displeasure. “Who do you think you are? You’ll do what we say when we say it.”  
  
Dean grinned. “Where’s the fun in that?”  
  
“You ungrateful little—”  
  
“Grateful? For what?”  
  
“I ordered your resurrection,” Zachariah growled.  
  
“Really? Cause the way I see it, Cas beat you to the punch line, and now you’re shit outta luck. If I owe something, I owe him. Not you.” Dean took another step closer. “Now if you wanna tell me what’s going on, great. If not, then me and Sam will take care of it ourselves, like we always do.”  
  
“You think this is just another hunt? There’s more going on than you could imagine in that tiny brain of yours.”  
  
“Maybe there is,” Dean said. “Then we’ll go down fighting. But get this straight—I’m not your soldier boy.”  
  
Zachariah narrowed his eyes. “I can see you’re going to need to be handled creatively.”  
  
Dean woke up.  
  
He rolled over to look behind him. The kitchen was empty.

*****

  
  
Nothing happened in the days that followed. He and Sam went back on the road, and Dean found himself easily falling into the swing of things. Salt it, burn it, kill it. Despite what seemed to be looming on the horizon, there wasn’t anything else to do but take each day at a time.  
  
Sometimes, taking one day at a time felt like it was the only thing he was doing, period. No matter how much he tried not to think about Hell, it was always at the back of his mind. But as long as he could keep it there, it was fine.  
  
Dean’s phone rang as they walked in the motel door one day.  
  
He looked at the Caller ID and answered. “Hey, Bobby.”  
  
“I got something you might want to take a look at.”  
  
“A case?”  
  
“Not exactly sure. But you know how I’ve been on the lookout for anything that’s stranger than usual?”  
  
“You find something Apocalypse related?”  
  
“It’s a possession, but other than that, you got me. I sent the file to you. It’s security footage from a psych ward. A John Doe was brought in off the streets by the cops. He had to be restrained and drugged. They had him for almost a week, and he wasn’t speaking anything but ancient Greek.”  
  
“Okay, getting interesting,” Dean said.  
  
Sam was listening to the conversation now. “Get your computer,” Dean mouthed to him.  
  
“It took them a while to even figure out that much,” Bobby said. “Sounded like he was screaming incoherently most of the time. They mainly kept him knocked out at first.”  
  
“So do we need to go check him out?”  
  
“That’s the thing. Witnesses say that after this tape cuts out, he vanished into thin air. Still, there might be something there.”  
  
“We’ll take a look. Anything else?”  
  
“No news is good news.” Dean could practically hear Bobby’s shrug.  
  
“Yeah, all right. Later, Bobby.”  
  
Dean hung up and moved to the table, where Sam already had his laptop open. “You got it?”  
  
“Yeah. What are we looking at?”  
  
“Possession case in a hospital who vanished into thin air.”  
  
Sam had already downloaded the video file, and now he opened up the attachment of the admittance papers.  
  
“Holy shit,” Sam said. He turned to Dean.  
  
Dean knew his own mouth was hanging open. The image at the top was small and a bad photocopy to boot, but it was Castiel’s face staring back at him.  
  
“Play the video,” Dean said.  
  
The picture was from a security camera, and if Dean hadn’t already seen the image of Castiel, he would have been hard pressed to recognize the tiny figure on the video. Castiel was being led down the hall by an orderly when he suddenly started screaming and throwing himself against the wall. Another orderly appeared and tried to subdue him, but he only yelled louder.  
  
The video cut out seconds later, lost in a sea of static and white noise.  
  
Sam started it over again. “It’s definitely something in Greek, but I can hardly catch any of it. Except for here,” he said, pointing at the video right before it cut out. “He’s saying yes.”  
  
Something was niggling at the back of Dean’s mind, but Sam got there first.  
  
His eyes widened. “That’s not Castiel,” Sam said. “That—that’s the guy he was—remember what he said about vessels?”  
  
Dean remembered, vaguely. But he’d been a bit preoccupied with going to Hell at the time.  
  
“Angels don’t have bodies,” Sam said. “They have to possess someone to come to Earth, but they need permission.” He pointed at the screen again. “This isn’t someone who’s been possessed, but someone who’s been _unpossessed_. And that, right at the end—”  
  
“Is when Cas came back,” Dean finished. “Fuck.” This was some guy that Castiel had been riding for at least two thousand years. No wonder the poor bastard had been screaming in ancient Greek—it was probably his mother tongue. “Fuck.”  
  
“Did you really not know this?”  
  
“It never came up. I just figured angels had bodies. Why wouldn’t I? It wasn’t like he introduced himself and said, ‘By the way, this isn’t my skin’.” Dean pulled out a chair and sat down. “How do _you_ know all this?”  
  
Sam rested an elbow on the table. “He explained it. When Castiel left for Hell, he needed my help. He said he could leave his vessel as it was, so it—so the guy—would keep sleeping until he came back. He took me to a cave—the cave, I think.” Dean didn’t need to ask what cave. “He had the floor of it covered in circles and symbols.”  
  
“What did he need you for?”  
  
“Some symbols had to be drawn in human blood. After I was done, he put a hand on my shoulder and I was standing next to the Impala again.” Sam shrugged. “That was it. I didn’t see him again until he came back with you.” He looked back at the screen. “Why would Castiel leave his body like that?”  
  
“Something tells me he didn’t have a choice.”  
  
“But he came back. That has to be good, right?”  
  
“Who knows,” Dean muttered.  
  
“We should call Bobby, tell him we know what this is about, at least.”  
  
“Yeah, okay.” As Dean stood up, his eyes once again fell on the paused video. “There’s nothing about this that isn’t fucked up.”

*****

  
  
Castiel himself appeared two days later. He was suddenly just there, standing in the motel room when Dean turned around from the sink.  
  
“Hello, Dean.”  
  
He looked exactly the same, though his expression was more unyielding than Dean had ever seen it. Dean tried for casual anyway. “Hey, Cas. You just missed Sam. Want a beer?”  
  
“We need to talk.”  
  
“Yeah, I figured. I met your pal Zachariah.”  
  
Castiel made no comment. He also hadn’t moved an inch.  
  
“Last time I saw you,” Dean said, “you seemed convinced you were going to your execution.”  
  
“It has been decided that I’m more valuable alive, as I already have a relationship with you.”  
  
“And Heaven wants me to be their bitch, is that it? They think I’m gonna play nice just because they send you to ask?”  
  
Castiel frowned, as if puzzled. It was disturbing because he was only mimicking being confused. “Do you not want to save people?”  
  
“Damn it, Cas, of course I do.”  
  
“Do you not want to stop Lilith?”  
  
“You know we do.”  
  
“Then you have no reason to fight us,” he stated. “We want the same things.”  
  
Dean moved closer, searching Castiel’s eyes. “What happened to you, Cas?”  
  
Castiel didn’t even blink. “I remembered my duty.”  
  
Dean studied Castiel’s face, but there was nothing. Dean hadn’t found him so alien since the day he’d stumbled across him in the fire circle.  
  
He sighed. “Look, if your frat buddies want jack shit from me, you’ve gotta give me something to work with here.”  
  
“Lilith is trying to free Lucifer from Hell.”  
  
“Then all this _is_ leading to Lucifer. To the Apocalypse.”  
  
“Lucifer will bring the Apocalypse.” Castiel paused. “There are seals that are like locks on the door of his cage. They’re being broken by Lilith. If sixty-six seals fall, Lucifer will walk free.”  
  
“So what exactly _are_ seals?”  
  
“Various rituals to be performed under specific circumstances. The Rising of the Witnesses was a seal.”  
  
“Okay,” Dean said slowly. “And where do we fit into all this?”  
  
“You’re needed to do God’s work.”  
  
“God’s work, huh? Why?”  
  
“You were chosen by Heaven.”  
  
“And what if I don’t want to be? What if I say screw you when one of you comes around with a job for me?”  
  
“Then people will die.” Castiel tilted his head. “Can you live with yourself, Dean, knowing that people died because you refused to assist them? That you sacrificed them simply to spite us?”  
  
Dean’s jaw clenched. The fact that Castiel knew him meant he knew exactly what buttons to push.  
  
Castiel continued, still speaking as if this whole conversation meant nothing, as if Dean meant nothing. “Lilith must be stopped. If she succeeds, it will be Hell on Earth. You of all people should appreciate what that means.”  
  
“Fine, all right? Fine. What do you want me to do?”  
  
“I’ll let you know when you’re needed.”  
  
Dean glared. “Super.”  
  
Castiel got that look that he did when he was about to disappear.  
  
“What about that guy you’re riding?” Dean asked. “I know what happened when you left him.”  
  
“That was regrettable,” Castiel admitted. “It was not a kindness to leave him in a world outside his time that he could never comprehend.”  
  
“Yeah? It wasn’t exactly a ‘kindness’ to walk around in him to begin with.”  
  
“You know what I am. You know I cannot walk this world as myself. This man sleeps once more. That’s all I can do.”  
  
Castiel fell silent. That was apparently all he was going to say about it. Then, “I’m needed elsewhere.”  
  
“Have at it,” Dean said, waving his hand.  
  
Castiel disappeared.  
  
Dean went to the fridge and pulled out a beer.  
  
\-----  
  
He was lying on the bed when Sam opened the door.  
  
“Good news, bad news,” Dean said. “Cas is back, except he’s a pod person now. Oh, and Lilith wants more than you dead. She’s trying to free Lucifer and end the world.”  
  
Sam frowned. “What part of that was good?”  
  
“Bad news, bad news, then. You better have brought me pie.”

*****

  
  
There was a seal two weeks later. Castiel turned up, told them about a demon who was doing a midnight sacrifice in an abandoned church, and left.  
  
Sam seemed slightly disappointed.  
  
“I told you,” Dean said.  
  
They had discussed the situation after Castiel’s last visit. Sam had been more optimistic than Dean had, probably because he was still a bit choirboy about the whole thing. At any rate, they had decided that there wasn’t much reason _not_ to do what the angels wanted.  
  
It didn’t mean that Dean was happy about it, though. Despite what he’d said to Zachariah, Dean didn’t think that telling him to get lost would be that simple. He was stuck in this game no matter what he played, and he was far from having the upper hand.  
  
They managed to kill the demon and stop the seal from breaking, but not before Sam was thrown down a flight of stairs and one of the victims almost died from blood loss. The job was done, but it was far from what Dean would call a successful hunt. As it was, Sam didn’t have any broken bones, but Dean was going to have to watch him all night to make sure he didn’t have a concussion.  
  
Though at least that beat Sam watching him. Sam wasn’t an idiot; Dean knew he was bound to notice the drinking and the erratic sleeping sooner or later. But that didn’t mean they had to talk about it.  
  
Once they were back at the motel, Sam went inside immediately, and Dean put the rest of their stuff from the hunt back in the trunk.  
  
“Cas.”  
  
Dean slammed the trunk.  
  
“Cas,” he repeated, louder. “You gonna show your face? We got your seal, by the way. But you know what? I’d sure like to know what the hell that was.”  
  
“It was a seal being saved.” Castiel was there, standing a few paces away.  
  
“Is that how this is gonna work?” Dean demanded. “You point us at a seal and then fuck off to nowhere? Because let me tell you, we could have used some backup.”  
  
“That’s not what I’m here for,” he said, expressionless.  
  
“No, you’re just here to tell me what to do. Why weren’t you fighting? Any of you?”  
  
“This wasn’t only thing that required our attention. This was one battle. There’s a bigger picture.”  
  
“Great. Bigger picture. Awesome. Cause the picture from here sucks.”  
  
Castiel was actually starting to look displeased. “We are all soldiers, and our numbers are not unlimited. Do you think the armies of Heaven should just follow you around?”  
  
Dean moved forward, glaring in turn. “Considering you keep saying I’m your guy, yeah, maybe I do. Though I’d also settle for an explanation about what the hell that actually means.”  
  
When Castiel made no answer, Dean sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Cas, look. I get it. You had to fall in line. I get it, okay? You’re gonna show up and tell me what to do, and because I don’t want to see the damn world go to Hell, I’m gonna do it. But you gotta let me know that you’re still in there. I know you, man, and this isn’t you.”  
  
Castiel only stared at him with a face of stone.  
  
Dean swallowed. “I knew. In Hell. The second I saw you, I knew it was you. You’re the freakiest thing I’ve ever met, so there was nothing else it could have been.” He huffed, a half laugh. “Even in Hell, there was nothing as bad as you.” Then he took another step closer, his eyes never wavering from Castiel’s. “But you know what? You’re also the guy who never gets my jokes, and has no clue what personal space means. Who couldn’t loosen up if his life depended on it, but who can be a sneaky son of a bitch when he wants. Who I’d have a beer with, if you’d actually fucking drink a beer. You’re all of that.”  
  
For a long moment, Castiel didn’t reply. “You think I’m terrifying. But you’re not afraid of me.”  
  
Dean slowly gave Castiel an appraising look, pretending to consider it. “Nah.” He grinned.  
  
Castiel glanced down. “Thank you for the reminder.”  
  
“Of what?”  
  
“That there was one time in my existence that I was more than my function,” he said, regarding Dean coolly. “It’s a luxury I no longer have. I have to go.”  
  
“Cas, one second.” Dean wanted to know exactly how in over his head he was. “Are the rest of them just like you?”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“The other angels. Are they all—nuclear hurricanes?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
He vanished.  
  
Dean stood in place, staring blankly into the night. “We are so screwed.”

*****

  
  
The next time they heard anything about the Apocalypse was weeks later, when Dean woke from a nightmare to find Castiel sitting on the edge of his bed.  
  
At least Dean assumed this had something to do with the Apocalypse. But when he saw the look on Castiel’s face, he wasn’t so sure.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Castiel said.  
  
“For what?”  
  
“You have to stop it.” Castiel touched his forehead, and Dean woke up on a city bench.  
  
\-----  
  
_Back to the Future_ wasn’t quite as fun when you were living it. His mom was a hunter. His dad was a naïve guy with no taste in cars. There was so much wrong with both of those pictures.  
  
Castiel had appeared once, at the beginning, doing nothing but confirming that Dean was in fact in the past. Dean didn’t have anything to do but go with it, and try to figure out why the hell he was here.  
  
When he heard that the Yellow Eyed Demon was somewhere nearby beginning the thing that was going to destroy his family, it was like a punch to the gut. But when he remembered that Dad’s journal listed the dates and locations of the demon’s victims, he was driving to Colorado to find the Colt.  
  
He wasn’t entirely surprised that Castiel turned up during the drive, given that this little ‘time is fluid’ joyride was on him.  
  
“Got some more vague instructions?” Dean asked.  
  
“You do realize,” Castiel said, “that if you alter the future, none of you will become hunters. Everyone you’ve ever saved will die.”  
  
“Yeah, I realize. I’ve had plenty of time on the drive to think about it. But these are my parents. I’m not letting them die again, not if I can stop it. Because I don’t know why else I’m here. You guys want me to do something, or you wouldn’t have sent me back. So unless you want to tell me what that is, I’m gonna figure it’s hunting down this son of a bitch.” Dean tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “Tell you one thing. If I never become a hunter because of this, your sorry ass will still be stuck in that fire circle. Irony’s a bitch, huh?”  
  
He really expected Castiel to leave after that, but Castiel remained where he was.  
  
Dean cleared his throat. Something else had occurred to him on the drive, and he knew it was stupid not to take advantage of what he suspected, since Castiel was still here.  
  
“Cas. Are we flying solo on this? Or is Big Brother still tapping the lines?”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“Any of your dick brothers come along for this blast from the past?”  
  
“No. Time travel is difficult. It would be unwise to expend the energy when our forces are needed elsewhere.”  
  
“Uh-huh,” Dean said slowly. “Just me and you, then. Like old times.” He gave Castiel a sideways glance.  
  
Castiel briefly looked in his direction, but Dean could tell that Castiel understood him perfectly. “Yes.”  
  
“Man, if you’ve got anything to say, this is it.”  
  
After an extended pause, Dean pressed on. “Okay, I’ll start. How about you tell me what the hell happened to you?”  
  
“I returned to Heaven for a time.”  
  
“Returned? Or was dragged back?”  
  
“I remembered my duty.”  
  
“Don’t give me that crap. This is me, Cas. This is you and me having a conversation that will never leave this car. And believe me, this car is definitely staying in 1973. You got it?”  
  
There was a moment of silence. But Dean could practically see Castiel turning things over in his head, see a decision being made.  
  
Finally, he said, “Dean, I don’t have a choice.”  
  
“I figured that much. And?”  
  
“I must be what I always was.”  
  
“A heartless bastard?” It came out before Dean thought it through. He kicked himself; he was trying to get Castiel to talk to him.  
  
But Castiel only said, “Yes.” He paused. “I’m here to carry out my orders, nothing more. My loyalty is to Heaven, and my sympathies cannot be in question.”  
  
“Really. Cause I thought it was your ‘sympathies’ that got you off the hook.”  
  
“My superiors deemed my connection to you useful, but not something I’m to engage in again. They will not be lenient a second time.”  
  
“So this is lenient?” Dean snorted. “Could have fooled me.”  
  
There was another silence.  
  
“Level with me here—are you down with all this?”  
  
“Lucifer cannot rise.”  
  
“Well, yeah. Not going to argue with you there. But what do you _think_ , Cas? You may be stuck proving you’re employee of the month, but I know there’s more going on in there.”  
  
He glanced at Castiel, who was staring vacantly at the road before them.  
  
“I now question the doubts I had before,” he said eventually.  
  
“They really did a number on you, didn’t they?”  
  
“Heaven ensured my obedience, but my questions are my own.” Castiel paused. “It was Heaven’s will that you be raised from Hell. I knew nothing of that, yet your resurrection still came to pass at my hands.” He looked at Dean. “It was meant to happen. How is that not destiny? I must consider the possibility that everything I’ve done was part of God’s plan.”  
  
“God’s _plan_? Dude, you thought God might not even be in Heaven.”  
  
“Heaven could still be doing God’s work.”  
  
“Yeah? And what if you were right earlier and they’re doing whatever they want? What then?”  
  
Castiel was solemn. “Regardless of my brothers’ actions, I believe God’s wishes are being implemented. Perhaps His will is irreversible. Perhaps no matter where He is, His designs will always be fulfilled, and no one—not you, nor I, nor my brothers—can change it.”  
  
Dean didn’t reply for a moment. “And you think _I’m_ proof of that? That you saving me from Hell means that there’s some divine plan playing out?”  
  
“I’ve considered it.”  
  
“I don’t even know where to start with how messed up that is.” The idea that Dean himself was proof of anything divine was laughable. But the last thing that Dean felt like doing was laughing. “Cas, the world’s going to Hell, and God’s probably off drinking booze out of a coconut. And your bosses, no matter what goddamn plan they’re following, are a bunch of self-serving douches.”  
  
“It’s irrelevant.”  
  
“How is any of that irrelevant?” Dean demanded.  
  
“Because there’s work to be done, work that must be done. The Apocalypse must be stopped, and my brothers are doing that. There are many things that I no longer have a choice about. But I know without question that preserving this world is my Father’s will, and I’ll do anything to accomplish that.”  
  
“Even turning into a dick who won’t give me the time of day?” Dean said, his eyes flicking from the road to Castiel. “Cause I don’t think this new you would have pulled me out of Hell. Where’s that put your destiny, huh? They might have dragged you back and made you play by the rules, but you’ve actually gone and convinced yourself that you’re on their side.”  
  
“I am a servant of God,” Castiel said, his voice hard. “That’s something that has never changed and never will. Not even for you.”  
  
Then Dean was alone.

 

 

*****

 

 

Being back in the motel room was an abrupt change after standing on a roadside in 1973. His mom had made a deal. “I didn’t stop any of it, did I?”  
  
“No,” Castiel said. “But you couldn’t have stopped it. Destiny can’t be changed.”  
  
There was nothing at all in his manner that suggested they’d had a previous conversation. Not that it mattered, since Castiel was fully on board with doing whatever Heaven told him to.  
  
Dean stood up from the bed. “Then what was any of this _for_?”  
  
“You now know everything about Azazel that we do.”  
  
“And you couldn’t come up with a better plan than to Marty McFly me? How about just freaking telling me about the demon blood?”  
  
“Those weren’t my orders,” Castiel said. “We know what Azazel did, but we don’t know why. But there are other things you need to know.”  
  
“Like what?”  
  
Castiel looked at Sam’s empty bed. “Did Sam tell you where he was going? Why he left while you slept?”  
  
“Why the hell do you care? Better yet, why should I? All your bosses seem to want to do is jerk me around.”  
  
“So you don’t care what he’s doing.”  
  
Dean didn’t want to rise to the bait. But his deep-seated tendency to worry about Sam wasn’t easily pushed away. “Fine, I’ll bite. Where is he?”

*****

  
  
He found Sam at the warehouse easily enough, picking out the form of his brother through the window. In front of him, there was what was obviously a demon tied to a chair in a circle. Dean relaxed slightly—nothing wrong with a little demon interrogation, even though he didn’t like the fact that Sam hadn’t even mentioned it.  
  
Another movement, and the back of a blonde head came into view. Ruby. He knew she was around, but why Sam insisted on trusting her was beyond him.  
  
But her presence made it perfectly clear why Dean hadn’t been invited on this little trip. He could barely stand to be in the same room as Ruby, but it was obvious that nothing he said would have any effect on Sam. Right now, the best thing he could do was watch both their backs until she turned on them and proved him right.  
  
Inside, they were still talking.  
  
Then Sam raised a hand, and demon smoke poured out of the man’s mouth.  
  
Dean’s blood ran cold.  
  
The smoke disappeared, and Ruby smiled. When the warehouse door opened under Dean’s hand, Sam and Ruby turned at the sound. Sam immediately got a panicky look on his face.  
  
Dean strode forward. “Anything you want to tell me?”  
  
“Dean, just let me—”  
  
“Explain? You’re gonna explain this? I knew you were still working with this bitch, and I thought, hey, I’ll let it slide, since you’ve got no fucking common sense and won’t listen to reason about her. God knows I already put up with her for a year.”  
  
Ruby smiled. “Nice to see you, too, Dean. I have to say, I didn’t really think you’d make it out. How was Hell?”  
  
“I was going to tell you,” Sam started.  
  
Dean could almost feel himself shaking with rage. “Did you? Cause I _asked_ you if there was anything else I should know, and this never fucking came up!”  
  
“I just—needed to figure out the right way to say it.”  
  
“That you’re using your powers? Seems pretty straightforward to me.”  
  
“Fun as this is,” Ruby said, “I have to go.”  
  
“Like hell you do,” Dean said.  
  
She stepped over to the man in the chair, cutting him loose and draping his arm over her shoulders. “This guy needs the hospital.”  
  
Dean didn’t give an inch, but she edged past him with a smirk on her lips. The door clanged shut behind her.  
  
Sam was watching him, shifting between looking guilty and blameless. He didn’t like being caught, but he also didn’t think he was wrong.  
  
“Dean, try to see the other side of this,” he said, stepping closer. “I’m pulling demons out of people, _innocent_ people. I can send them back to Hell.”  
  
“With your mind, Sam! You’re doing it with your mind!”  
  
“I’m exorcising demons! That’s _good_ , Dean.”  
  
“And what’s Ruby going to get you to do next, huh?”  
  
Sam drew himself up. “I won’t let it go too far.”  
  
Dean turned, kicking over the chair and sending it skittering across the warehouse floor. “Damn it, Sam! It’s already gone too far.” His jaw clenched as he looked at Sam again. “Do you even know how far off the reservation you’ve gone? How far from normal? From _human_?”  
  
Sam glanced to the floor, refusing to meet Dean’s eyes.  
  
“You know how I even found you tonight? Cas told me where you were. _Heaven_ is interested in this, Sam. You think that’s good? We’ve got the Apocalypse and Lilith and seals, and they took the time to tell me about you. So don’t stand there and tell me that there’s nothing wrong with this.”  
  
Without another word, Dean turned and walked out of the warehouse.  
  
\-----  
  
He slept in the Impala by the side of the road and didn’t go back to the motel room until the next afternoon.  
  
Sam was there when he walked in.  
  
Dean didn’t think he had anything left to say. He was still angry, but it had settled into a solid weight rather than the fury he’d had last night.  
  
Sam stood up. “You remember Travis?”  
  
“Huh?”  
  
“Travis. Hunter. He called me about something in Carthage. I want to check it out.”  
  
Apparently they weren’t going to talk about it and were going to pretend it never happened. The Winchester method.  
  
“Fine.”  
  
\-----  
  
The drive was silent for hours. But eventually, Dean started talking, telling Sam about his impossible-sounding trip to the past and their family.  
  
Sam was quiet for a while after he finished, looking out the window. “I still can’t believe it about Mom. But—our parents, our grandparents, our whole family murdered just so Yellow Eyes could bleed in my mouth? It’s just… I don’t know.”  
  
There was a long pause. “Sam, I never said anything about demon blood.” Dean looked at him. “You’re telling me you _knew_ about this?”  
  
“Yeah, for a while now,” Sam admitted. “I should have told you, I know.” Then his tone changed. “Wait, were you going to tell _me_? You what, just left that part out?”  
  
“I don’t know, okay?”  
  
“You know what, this is why I didn’t tell you. I know how you are about this psychic stuff.”  
  
“And it turns out I was right! It was bad enough before, but nothing that came from a _demon_ is gonna be good. And now you’re _using_ it. If it’s all so wonderful, why keep it a secret?”  
  
“Because of stuff like this,” Sam said, his voice rising. “You look at me like a freak, talk to me like an idiot—like I don’t know the difference between right and wrong.”  
  
Dean looked over. “Do you?”  
  
“I’ve got something I never wanted and never asked for! All I want to do is take this thing inside me and make something good out of it. If I can use my powers to help people, why shouldn’t I? Why?”  
  
“That what Ruby said?”  
  
“No.” Sam actually laughed. “I don’t think Ruby gives a damn about helping people.”  
  
“Then what does she give a damn about?”  
  
“You really want to talk about this?” Sam said, giving him a skeptical look. “Actually talk, not argue?”  
  
“Hey, I can talk. We’re getting it all out there.”  
  
Sam was silent.  
  
Dean took a deep breath and exhaled. “C’mon, Sam. I wanna know. Give me something to work with here.”  
  
“She’s helped us,” Sam started. “She wants Lilith dead. This—the exorcising—was what she meant last year when she said that I had the power to stop Lilith, to save you. If I could have done this then, you wouldn’t have gone to Hell at all.”  
  
“We don’t know that.”  
  
“No, we don’t,” Sam said. “Because we didn’t try. What if I could have saved you, and I didn’t? I should have been able to; maybe I _would_ have been able to, if I’d only— After… after everything was done, I went back to the house that we met at the night before we went to find Lilith. Ruby was still there in the trap. I let her out.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Because I needed her help. I needed to kill Lilith. Because the last thing I was gonna do was have you come back and lead you straight to Lilith again,” Sam said quietly. “Ruby was pissed; it had been days. But when I told her that I was ready to know how I could stop Lilith, she just said, ‘finally,’ and that was it. There were a couple of times this summer that we got word of Lilith, but we never got close enough, and Ruby said I wasn’t strong enough to take her out yet. That’s what this is, Dean—practice. I’m saving people and that feels good, but it’s all to kill Lilith. I can do it.”  
  
“So? I can do it, too. We have the knife.”  
  
“The knife we got from _Ruby_. But this is better than the knife. There’s no risk.”  
  
“No _risk_?”  
  
“No risk from the other demons she has, no risk of her smoking out or getting away. She’s going to come again, and I’ll be ready. I can take all this crap that was dumped on me and turn it into something good,” Sam said earnestly. “I don’t have to be what they want me to be.”  
  
Dean kept his eyes firmly on the road.  
  
“Well?” Sam asked. “You gonna say anything?”  
  
“Man, I know you’ve got good intentions. But I know where that crap leads. All this stuff, these powers of yours? Nothing’s gonna convince me that it’s not a dangerous road. Saving people—yeah, I get it. But where does it go from there? You need to stop, Sam. Just… stop it now, cut Ruby loose, and we’ll kill Lilith on our own.”  
  
“You’re not Dad, Dean. You don’t get to give me orders.”  
  
Dean snorted. “Yeah? And when did you ever follow Dad’s orders?”  
  
Sam hunched over, turning to the window again, and the conversation ended.  
  
\-----  
  
In Carthage, they met up with Travis and found the guy that was slated to turn into a rougarou.  
  
To say that he and Sam were having a tense working relationship was an understatement. They argued about Jack, but it was a continuation of the argument they’d been having for the last day. Sam thought the guy could fight it, thought that he didn’t deserve to be killed just because there was something evil inside him. He was a little personally invested in the case.  
  
After Sam had to burn the guy alive himself, he was somber.  
  
Once they were in the Impala and driving away, Dean cleared his throat. “Look, uh, I know I’ve been hard on you about all this. It’s just that your psychic thing—it scares the crap out of me.”  
  
Sam lifted his head from where it was resting on the window. “I don’t want to talk about it. There’s nothing I can say to make you understand. It’s not in you like it’s in me.” He sighed. “I’m the one that has to deal with it. But it doesn’t matter.”  
  
“Why not?”  
  
“This thing inside me, these powers… It’s playing with fire. And I’m done with it, with everything. I don’t want—” He cut himself off. “I’m just done.”

*****

  
  
Sam was withdrawn for the next couple of days. Dean left him to it. It was enough for him that Sam had put away the idea of the whole powers thing; they didn’t need to talk about it more than they already had. Sometimes Sam’s phone rang, and he’d look at the number before turning the phone off and putting it in his pocket. From the strained look on his face, Dean didn’t have any doubt that the caller was Ruby.  
  
Dean started searching the web, determined to find a straightforward hunt to get Sam’s mind off all the crap he couldn’t change (and shouldn’t think about in case he started second guessing himself). He found vampires in Pennsylvania, which was awesome.  
  
It was a good hunt, as far as Dean was concerned—just him and Sam on the job. Even if the case didn’t turn out to be a clear-cut vampire problem like he’d thought, it was definitely something that needed their attention. There was a monster to kill and a girl to save, and he could almost believe that everything was normal.

*****

  
  
It was a funny thing, going crazy. Dean knew he was going crazy, he even knew why he was going crazy, but it didn’t matter. Ghost sickness couldn’t be fought with logic, as the now dead sheriff on the floor confirmed. Dean had tried to get him to calm down, but it hadn’t worked.  
  
He knew that he needed to calm down himself—but everything in the room was wrong. No matter where he looked, there was something to worry about. Dean sat down on the bed, closing his eyes and taking deep breaths. Focus. Focus. Sam. Sam had a plan; he said so. Sam was going to fix this.  
  
_You’re going back, Dean. It’s about damn time._  
  
Or Sam was going to turn into a demon and laugh as he cast Dean aside.  
  
Dean felt something next to him on the bed. He opened his eyes.  
  
“Hi, Dean!” Lilith beamed at him.  
  
Dean jumped up, moving away from the bed.  
  
“What’s the matter? Don’t you like me? Oh well, it’s not important,” she said brightly. “You know why this is happening.”  
  
“You—you are _not_ real!”  
  
“You’re going to die. Come back to us. I promise it’s fun once you get the hang of it.”  
  
Dean backed up farther.  
  
Castiel was standing in the space that led to the living room.  
  
Dean laughed. “Sorry, can’t help with the Apocalypse right now. Didn’t you hear? I quit. Also, I’m gonna die in—” he looked at his wrist “—any minute now. Don’t suppose you’re here to help me out with that?”  
  
“Sam will stop it,” Castiel said. “I thought I might wait with you.”  
  
Dean started scratching at his arm. “Why the hell would I want you here? I don’t even know what the fuck you are.”  
  
Castiel frowned. “I’m an angel.”  
  
“You’re a—a tornado of fire! How messed up is that? You have to go _out of your way_ not to destroy shit just by being here!” Dean waved his arms. “Which, hey, was great when you were on our side—well, not great, but okay, because you freaked me the fuck out for months—but we were good after that. But now? Who knows what the hell you’re gonna do? You’re probably one order from God away from killing us all.”  
  
Castiel didn’t respond, and Dean scratched his arm vigorously.  
  
Dean risked a look in the other direction. Lilith was jumping on the bed. She waved at him. He closed his eyes. He could hear his heart beating faster.  
  
“Dean,” Castiel said. “Dean.”  
  
Dean looked up.  
  
“You’re right.” He took a step forward. “When God’s work is done, we won’t need you anymore. Then you can return to Hell.”  
  
Dean found himself backing away.  
  
Castiel was matter-of-fact. “I dragged you out, and I’ll throw you back in.”  
  
Dean tripped over his own feet and landed in an undignified heap. But he didn’t get up, because it felt like his heart was beating in every inch of his body. He could feel it, hear it. Dean shut his eyes, but that only made it worse.  
  
There was nothing but the beating. Faster and louder. Faster and faster.  
  
He could feel it closing in.  
  
Then.  
  
Nothing.  
  
Dean cracked his eyes open. His arm was no longer scratched and bloody. His heart was still beating fast, but it was nothing that was going to kill him. Lilith was gone.  
  
Sam must have done it.  
  
Castiel was still there, which meant that he actually was real. But he didn’t look like a guy who had just said he was going to send Dean back to Hell. More hallucinations, then. Great.  
  
Dean stood. “What, you got a seal you need to point me at? Or did you show up just to get a front row seat to my breakdown?”  
  
“No.” Castiel looked away. “Perhaps it was a mistake to come.”  
  
“Why are you here?”  
  
“I wondered how you were.”  
  
Dean chuckled in spite of himself. “Oh, so we’re back to that.” That’s what Castiel used to say when he showed up in the nick of time for no particular reason. “I didn’t think you were supposed to be doing that anymore.”  
  
“I’m not.”  
  
“But here you are.”  
  
“Apparently.”  
  
Castiel folded his hands behind his back.  
  
Dean smirked. “So all I gotta do to talk to old you is nearly get killed. Good to know. You thought Sam would stop it—but if he didn’t, huh?”  
  
“You’re needed to do God’s work.”  
  
“Hey, if that’s the company line. Whatever gets you through your day.”  
  
“I should go.”  
  
“Yeah, whatever.” Dean hesitated. “Cas. That crap I said… I was out of my mind. I mean, I thought _Sam_ was trying to kill me earlier, so it’s not like—”  
  
“I understand.”  
  
“Do you?”  
  
“Yes.” Castiel gave him a measured look. “I know you.”  
  
The next moment, he was gone.  
  
Dean ran a hand through his hair. His eyes landed on the dead sheriff in the middle of the floor.  
  
“Aw, shit.”  
  
\-----  
  
One phone call to Sam, one fake cover story, and one speedy checkout later, and Dean was climbing into the Impala next to Sam, ready to put the Bluebird Hotel behind them.  
  
Sam pulled out of the parking lot, glancing at Dean uncertainly. “So you’re really good?”  
  
“I’m still here, aren’t I?”  
  
“Well, good.” Sam looked back at the road. “Bobby’s waiting. I told him we’d buy him a beer. You know, since he did drive down here to save you.”  
  
“Yeah. Good.”  
  
Dean looked out the window as they drove. He’d been out of his mind—he knew that. But he couldn’t deny that no matter what he thought he’d seen or heard, it all revolved around one thing.  
  
Hell wasn’t something he could leave behind.

*****

  
  
It took Dean almost a week to decide to call Castiel. He didn’t like admitting to himself that the thoughts, once they had started, hadn’t gone away. He also wasn’t sure if Castiel would even show up anymore if it wasn’t related to orders from Heaven.  
  
But Castiel arrived a few minutes after Dean had spoken his name.  
  
He surveyed the motel room with indifference. “Yes?”  
  
Castiel was all business these days, so Dean jumped straight to the point. “What happens when I die?”  
  
“You’ll be dead.”  
  
“No, uh, to my soul. Will I go back to Hell?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“But I sold my soul. You sure they don’t get it when I check out again?”  
  
“Hell lost its right to you when I took you,” Castiel said. Then, clearly anticipating Dean’s train of thought, he added, “You belong to no one but yourself.”  
  
“Right. Uh, good.”  
  
“Is that all you needed?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Dean blinked, and he was alone.  
  
He ran a hand through his hair. He still had nightmares about Hell; he expected he always would. Hell wasn’t something you could just deal with and move on from.  
  
But there was relief in knowing that he would never set foot there again.

*****

  
  
The case they ended up working around Halloween was much worse than it initially appeared. Because that was the way their luck went.  
  
Hex bags and witches were bad enough, but then Sam figured out that the killings weren’t about grudges. They were the steps in a heavy-duty black magic ritual to raise the demon Samhain, and he was only the beginning of what would follow.  
  
The next day, Castiel turned up in their room with another angel in tow.  
  
“What now?” Dean shut the door behind him.  
  
“Hi, Castiel,” Sam said, smiling.  
  
“Hello.”  
  
When Castiel didn’t give him any more than that, Sam’s face fell a little.  
  
“Have you stopped the raising of Samhain?” Castiel asked.  
  
“We’re working on it,” Sam said, trying again.  
  
“Why are you here?” Dean asked. “Don’t tell me you’re actually gonna help this time.”  
  
“The raising of Samhain is one of the seals. It must—be prevented.” He sounded like the words were being dragged out of him.  
  
For the first time, Dean noticed the tension in Castiel. Dean frowned, suddenly feeling on edge. “Cas, what’s going on?”  
  
The other angel turned and spoke. “Enough of this.”  
  
“This is Uriel. He’s a specialist.” Castiel paused. “We’re here to destroy the town.”  
  
“ _What_?” Sam said. “There are a thousand people here. You can’t be serious.”  
  
“The raising must be stopped. We have to save the seal. There’s—”  
  
“If you say ‘a bigger picture’ one more time, so help me, I will kick your ass,” Dean said.  
  
“Those are our orders, Dean.”  
  
“Your orders are crap. Killing all these people because you’ve lost some seals?”  
  
Sam still looked struck with disbelief that they were even having this conversation. “What if we stop the witch before the summoning? We know who it is.”  
  
Dean stared at Castiel, who seemed to be looking everywhere but him. “I’m not gonna let you barbeque an entire town just to get one little witch.”  
  
Uriel stepped closer. “You think you can stop us?”  
  
“No, but if you’re gonna smite this whole town, then you’re gonna have to smite me with it. You guys keep saying you need me for something, so I figure you’re not gonna waste me.” Dean caught Castiel’s eyes. “We’ll find the witch. We’ll stop it.”  
  
He expected a protest, more about the bigger picture and orders, but all Castiel said was, “Very well.”  
  
\-----  
  
Dean was in the parking lot by himself after all was said and done. They hadn’t been able to stop the witch or save the seal. On top of that, he’d walked into the crypt just in time to see Sam using his powers to send Samhain back to Hell.  
  
The worst part was that Sam had found a way to justify it to himself. Samhain had to be taken out, and Sam claimed he didn’t have a choice. Despite all his talk about playing with fire, when push came to shove, Sam had relied on his psychic stuff.  
  
When Dean looked to his left, Castiel was standing beside him.  
  
Dean leaned back against the Impala, turning to stare straight ahead. Castiel didn’t speak.  
  
Finally, Dean said, “I have no freaking idea why you’re here.” He smirked to himself. “But I don’t think you know, either.”  
  
“A seal was broken.”  
  
“Way to state the obvious. You done?” Dean knew he hadn’t done much recently but snap at Castiel, but he couldn’t seem to help it. Castiel wasn’t giving him much to work with.  
  
“You should know that our orders were not to stop the summoning,” Castiel said. “They were to do whatever you told us to. It was a test.”  
  
Dean glanced at Castiel, narrowing his eyes. “For me or for you?”  
  
“I don’t know.”  
  
Dean shook his head. “Man, I don’t know what’s going on up there, but there’s something shady about it. They’re pulling you by the strings and watching you dance. Can’t you see that? Don’t you care?”  
  
“I’m doing God’s work.”  
  
“So be a freelancer for God and call it a day.”  
  
Castiel frowned. “What are you saying?”  
  
“You think crap like this is helping God? Tell them to shove it,” Dean said, moving to face him. “Do what you think God wants you to do, not what some douches tell you.”  
  
“That’s rebellion.”  
  
“The way you told it before, you already rebelled. You said going to Hell was rebellion.”  
  
“It was,” Castiel acknowledged. “And I made the choice to go. I knew consequences were a possibility. But they were also not a certainty. There was a chance I wouldn’t be noticed.” He paused. “There is no chance here, Dean. And there is nothing to be gained.”  
  
“Yeah? And what did you have to gain last time?”  
  
Castiel stepped into Dean’s space, anger flashing over his features. “ _You_.”  
  
For a long moment, Dean didn’t reply.  
  
Then he said, “So if it was me or them, what would it be?”  
  
Castiel’s mouth pressed into a thin line.  
  
He vanished.

*****

  
  
As if Dean needed any more reason to dislike Uriel, Uriel had apparently told Sam something about Dean’s time in Hell. Which Sam latched onto like a dog with a bone.  
  
He didn’t believe that Dean didn’t remember Hell, no matter how much Dean tried to convince him that Uriel was a lying, manipulative dick. When the case was done, Dean finally came out with it.  
  
“You were right,” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets as they walked. “I do remember everything that happened. All of it.”  
  
“So tell me about it.”  
  
“No,” Dean said, stopping and looking Sam in the eye.  
  
“Dean, you have to let me help.”  
  
“Do you really think talking it through is gonna make it better? You remember what you told me about your psychic stuff? How it was in you? Well, this is in me. The things I saw—I can never make you understand. I’m sorry, but that’s how it is.”  
  
Sam glanced at the ground, and Dean recognized the signs of resignation in his posture. Sam wasn’t happy about it, but maybe he’d leave it alone now.  
  
Then Sam said, “What about Castiel?”  
  
“What about him?” Dean asked, confused.  
  
“You say I can’t imagine what it was like, fine. I’ll give you that. But Castiel was there, wasn’t he? You need to talk to someone, Dean. You can’t go on like this. I’d rather you talk to me, but I just want you to—”  
  
“Get better?” Dean interrupted. “You think a little sharing and caring will heal me somehow? Gonna fix things, just like that? I’m not gonna lie anymore, but I’m not gonna talk about it. That’s it. End of story.”  
  
He started walking again. Sam followed.  
  
Dean was relieved that Sam let the subject drop. Because as far as he was concerned, it was closed.

*****

  
  
Ruby turned up again shortly after that. She had a lead on some girl that demons wanted, which was convenient. Then she encouraged Sam to use his powers to take out some heavy hitter, which was expected.  
  
But even Sam’s psychic thing didn’t do jack. When Dean realized that the demon was Alastair, he couldn’t help the shudder he felt.  
  
They only made it out of the church by jumping through the stained glass window. Dean picked himself up off the pavement in time to see Anna and Ruby running out a side door. He groaned; his shoulder was dislocated.  
  
“We need to go!” Ruby shouted.  
  
“Everybody in the car,” Dean said. “Now!” He could see Alastair standing in the window.  
  
They all piled in, and ten seconds later, the Impala’s tires were screeching as Dean floored it and put the church behind them.  
  
It was Sam who asked, “What now?”  
  
“Get back to my car,” Ruby said. “I’ve got hex bags that can keep him from finding us.”  
  
Dean snorted. “If you think I’m carrying around a bag of baby bones, you’re out of your damn mind.”  
  
“What you don’t know about hex bags could fill volumes. No one died to make these, okay?”  
  
“Like I’m just supposed to believe you.”  
  
“Believe whatever you want. I haven’t done anything but help you.” Ruby eyed Sam. “That arm looks bad. We’ll need to fix it.”  
  
“I’ll take care of it when we stop,” Sam said. He had a hand to his blood soaked sleeve.  
  
Dean was all for kicking Ruby out anywhere along the highway, but Sam insisted they get the hex bags. When Dean pulled onto the street Ruby had named, she and Sam both got out. She said something to him, before opening her trunk and pressing the bags into his hands. Then she got into the car without another glance in their direction.  
  
When Sam got back in, he met Dean’s gaze and shrugged. “We need all the help we can get, Dean. Do you want Alastair to find us?”  
  
Dean was sure Sam had seen his reaction to Alastair. “Whatever.”  
  
“We each get one,” Sam said, stuffing one of the bags in Dean’s jacket pocket. He handed the other one to Anna.  
  
Dean looked at Anna in the rearview mirror as he pulled back onto the main road. “Hey, uh, I know this all seems crazy, but just hang in there. I know you don’t really know us—”  
  
“No,” she said quietly. “It’s fine. Like I said, I feel like I do.”  
  
“Do we have a plan here?” Sam said.  
  
“Right now, just keep moving. The best I can figure is Bobby’s, since he’s got the panic room. It would keep the demons out, and she’d be safe. Then we can go from there.”  
  
After another moment, Sam said, “I think we’re overlooking the obvious here.”  
  
“Which is?”  
  
“Anna hears angels. We know an angel. Maybe Castiel can tell us more about this—what it means, why it’s happening to her.”  
  
“No!” Anna said. “You—you can’t. You can’t tell them about me.” She leaned forward from the backseat. “You _can’t_.”  
  
“Okay, okay,” Dean said. “Relax.” He glanced at her over his shoulder. “Why not?”  
  
“I don’t know.” She paused, looking away. “Something bad will happen. I know something bad will happen if you do.”  
  
Dean shared a look with Sam.  
  
Sam sighed. “No angels, then.”  
  
“Do you think it would be safe to call my parents?” Anna asked. “I never went home after I ran away from the hospital, so they don’t know.”  
  
“Um,” Sam started. “Your parents… I’m sorry, but—”  
  
“No. No, they’re not…”  
  
“Demons had already been to your house. I’m sorry.”  
  
Anna let out a choked sob. After a second, there was another one, and then she was having a full-blown cry in the backseat.  
  
Dean snuck a glimpse at Sam, who looked about as awkward and uncomfortable as Dean felt.  
  
He cleared his throat. “These hex bags will really keep them off our trail?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Once they were out of town, Dean pulled off the highway on the next deserted side road he saw. He opened his door, motioning for Sam to do the same. He figured the least they could do was give her a minute alone. Also—  
  
“Dude, I need you to pop my shoulder back in.”  
  
Sam gaped at him. “You’ve been _driving_ with a dislocated shoulder?”  
  
“I had my right arm. You only need one hand to drive, Sam.”  
  
Sam gestured at his own arm. “Stitch this up for me first.”  
  
“I only have one hand.”  
  
“Dude, so do I.”  
  
Between the two of them (mostly Sam), they got Sam’s arm stitched, and then Sam reset Dean’s shoulder. When they got back in the car, Anna didn’t say a word. None of them did.  
  
\-----  
  
He and Sam took turns driving, aiming to drive through the night and make it to Bobby’s the next day. Hex bags or not, Dean didn’t want to stop at a motel, not with all the crap that was going down.  
  
When he switched places with Sam after midnight and went to sleep himself, he dreamed he was still driving.  
  
Castiel was in the passenger seat. He didn’t speak, but simply stared at Dean for a long moment before looking in the backseat. Anna was there, asleep.  
  
“What would you do?” he asked.  
  
“What?”  
  
“If you knew that the action you had to take was going to tear down the last remnants of the only thing you valued?”  
  
“Cas, what are you talking about?”  
  
Castiel met his gaze. “I can only pretend not to find you for so long, Dean.”  
  
Dean woke up, jerking upright in his seat.  
  
Sam looked at him. “You okay?”  
  
“Anna was right. Definitely no angels.”

*****

  
  
They made it to Bobby’s the next day, though Bobby was gone on a job of his own. Sam had called him that morning, and he’d said they were welcome to use the place as long as they didn’t break anything.  
  
Dean let himself in the back door by picking the lock. Anna raised an eyebrow. “I thought you said you knew him.”  
  
Sam laughed. “Bobby’s way too paranoid to leave a spare key around. He figures if we can’t pick the lock, we don’t deserve to get in. It’s a hunter thing.”  
  
The doorknob clicked under Dean’s hand, and he turned it, pushing the door open. He led them down to the panic room first.  
  
“Solid iron,” he said. “A demon can’t even set foot inside.”  
  
She looked around uncertainly before settling in a chair. “So I’m supposed to stay in here.”  
  
“Until we figure out what’s going on.”  
  
Anna shook her head. “Why is this my life?” she asked, looking up at him. “Why is this happening to me?”  
  
“I don’t know. But I promise we’ll find out.”  
  
“About that,” Sam said, coming into the room. “What about talking to someone?”  
  
“Like who?” Dean said.  
  
“A psychic? Bobby brought it up when I told him what was going on. He said he’d put in a word for us if we wanted to talk to her.” He looked at Anna. “If you want to talk to her. She might be able to help, or at least tell us why you’re overhearing things most psychics can’t even tap into.”  
  
“Okay,” Anna said. “Okay.”  
  
\-----  
  
A woman named Pamela Barnes was standing on Bobby’s front porch five hours later. She smiled and introduced herself when Dean opened the door. She even smiled when he gave her a flask of holy water to drink from, taking a long swing before handing it back.  
  
“I’m always disappointed when someone hands me a flask and there’s not whiskey in it,” she said.  
  
Dean smirked. “We’ve been having demon problems.”  
  
“So I heard.”  
  
Dean stepped back, opening the door further to let her in. Sam moved to stand beside him.  
  
Pamela grinned. “When Bobby said I’d be doing him a favor, he didn’t mention I’d be doing one for myself as well.” She ran an appreciative gaze over both of them, before settling her eyes on Sam. “I bet you could bounce a nickel off that ass.”  
  
Sam sputtered; Dean snickered.  
  
“Oh, I like her,” Dean said.  
  
Pamela laughed. “Right back at you. Now, let’s meet this girl who hears voices.”  
  
An introduction later, and Pamela was down to business. After a few minutes of talking, she had Anna lying down on the cot, her own hands resting on either side of Anna’s head as she took her into a trance.  
  
It wasn’t exactly the peaceful experience Dean pictured when he thought of hypnosis. Things started off fine, but ended with light bulbs exploding and Anna screaming at the top of her lungs.  
  
But afterward, she sat up like nothing had happened. “I remember now,” she said, strangely calm. “I’m an angel.”  
  
\-----  
  
Pamela made her apologies shortly after that. “Not that this isn’t fascinating,” she said, “but it’s a little rich for my blood.”  
  
“You did what you came to do,” Dean said. “We’ll deal the rest of it. There’s no reason for anyone else to get dragged in.”  
  
After she was gone, they assembled in the living room. Anna had come out of the panic room. Dean figured it didn’t really matter at this point.  
  
“So,” he said, sitting on the desk. “You’re an angel.”  
  
“I used to be. I fell.”  
  
“What does that mean?” Sam said.  
  
“I tore out my grace and became human. I’m human right now,” she said, gesturing to her body. “But I remember everything.”  
  
“Well, that explains why the demons want you. What about the angels?”  
  
“Heaven will want me dead because I disobeyed. More than that, I’m a liability.”  
  
“Meaning what?” Sam asked.  
  
Anna crossed her arms, looking out the window. “I was high in the chain of command. There were… whispers. Things that didn’t make sense. All I know is, they’ve been planning something for years—since before I fell, and I think this is it.”  
  
“What is?”  
  
“It shouldn’t be this hard to stop Lilith.”  
  
Dean frowned. “What does that mean?”  
  
“Anna.” Castiel was suddenly standing on the other side of the room.  
  
“Castiel.”  
  
“You two know each other?”  
  
“She was my superior,” Castiel said. He looked in Anna’s direction, hesitating. “It’s good to see you.”  
  
She gave a cheerless smile. “Doesn’t change what you’re here to do, does it?”  
  
Dean stood up. “What are you here to do?”  
  
“He’s here to kill me.”  
  
Dean remembered the dream he’d had, when Castiel had sat in the Impala and generally been cryptic. “No.”  
  
“I don’t have a choice,” Castiel said.  
  
“You can’t,” Sam said, his mouth falling open. “She hasn’t done anything!”  
  
“I have my orders.”  
  
“I don’t _care_ about your damn orders, Cas,” Dean said, walking up to him. “I’m not gonna sit here and let you kill some girl because of a fucking _order_.”  
  
“She’s one of us. I’ve allowed her the courtesy of regaining her memories, but that’s all I can do.”  
  
“You’re still gonna kill her! How was that a ‘courtesy’?”  
  
“Because now he can justify it,” Anna said. She looked at Castiel. “It’s easier to execute a traitor than it is to murder a human.” Then her eyes slid in Dean’s direction, and Castiel’s automatically followed. “You’ve changed,” she said, still speaking to Castiel.  
  
Anna glanced back at Castiel, but Castiel continued to look at Dean.  
  
“I heard them talk about you sometimes,” she said. “Both of you.”  
  
“I regret that I wasn’t able to take care of this without involving you,” Castiel said to Dean. His expression was resolute.  
  
“Cas, I know you don’t want to do this. Guess what? You don’t have to. Problem solved.”  
  
“I don’t have a choice.”  
  
“There’s always a choice!”  
  
Castiel seemed set in his decision, but he also hadn’t moved. Dean was standing in front of Anna, though she was nearly at his shoulder. Sam was a few feet away from both of them, looking like he knew he should be doing something, but having no idea what.  
  
Dean didn’t have any idea, either. He knew in his gut that he couldn’t actually stop Castiel if it came down to it. But Castiel was reluctant. More than that, he seemed unwilling to act simply because of Dean. He wasn’t looking at Anna and finding himself unable to do it; he was looking at Dean and finding himself unable to do it.  
  
Dean had no idea how long this bizarre standoff was going to last, but he was willing to keep it going until something else occurred to him.  
  
The air rippled, and then Zachariah was in the room. He surveyed the group before his eyes settled on Anna. “How the mighty have fallen.”  
  
“Zachariah.” She regarded him steadily. “You’ve moved up in the world.”  
  
“You left a vacancy,” he said with a disingenuous smile. Then he turned to Castiel. “And what, exactly, is the problem? Wasn’t I clear enough in my directions?”  
  
Castiel looked at the floor.  
  
“It really is hard to find good help these days.” His look darkened. “Your garrison in particular has been… troublesome recently.”  
  
“And what’s your problem?” Dean said. “Have to have someone else kill people for you? One human too much for you to handle yourself?”  
  
Zachariah’s mouth twisted. “It is _beneath me_. Do you think I’m supposed to be down here in the mud doing grunt work?”  
  
“No,” Anna said. “You’re supposed to be starting the Apocalypse.”  
  
Every head in the room turned toward her.  
  
Zachariah was the only one who wasn’t surprised. “How do you know that?”  
  
“I didn’t. But you just confirmed it.” She crossed her arms. “I used to be in your shoes. I know what it takes to hold the line. Seals are breaking, and you’re just letting them fall. I knew they were planning something, but none of it made sense until now.”  
  
Zachariah glowered at her, but quickly collected himself. “Well, the cat’s out of the bag,” he said, spreading his hands. “All that really means is speeding up the schedule.”  
  
“Lilith is trying to _free Lucifer_ ,” Sam said. “Why would you want that?”  
  
“So we can kill him, of course. The Apocalypse—bad name, puts people off. When really, it’s just the ultimate prizefight.”  
  
Dean was silent. Castiel’s doubts about Heaven were falling into place like the pieces of a puzzle.  
  
“You never wanted to stop it, did you?” Dean said. “Then why bother with all that crap about saving seals?”  
  
“Oh, we couldn’t tell everyone the truth—we’d have a full-scale rebellion on our hands. It was strictly need to know by orders of senior management. But when Lucifer is dead, when our side wins, it will be paradise on Earth. What’s not to like about that?”  
  
“What happens in the mean time? To all the people, while you’re having your little pissing match?”  
  
“Collateral damage,” Zachariah said, shrugging. “Unfortunate, but necessary.”  
  
“Then what the hell do you need me for?”  
  
Zachariah smiled. “You have a destiny. It’s all in God’s plan.”  
  
“Yeah? Cause a little bird told me that God already left. Did you just decide to throw an Apocalypse while he’s gone?”  
  
“You listen to me. This changes nothing. You will do what we say, when we say it. And you,” he said, turning to Castiel, “are going to get rid of this abomination right now.” He pointed to Anna. “Or you’ll share her fate.”  
  
Dean looked at Castiel, who hadn’t uttered a single word.  
  
His face was carefully blank, a thing Dean knew from experience happened when he was unpleasantly surprised.  
  
“I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess you didn’t know about this,” Dean said.  
  
Castiel’s eyes landed on him.  
  
“Man, it’s now or never. You think this is what God wants? You told me once you that you’d do anything to stop the world from being destroyed. Turns out your bosses are the ones trying to do it. So what are you gonna do?”  
  
For one tense moment, nothing happened.  
  
Then Castiel blinked, tilting his head a fraction of an inch, and Dean knew. Castiel hadn’t spoken or even moved, but Dean knew without question the second everything changed.  
  
Zachariah also noticed. His brows drew together in a scowl as he looked down at Castiel. “If you want something done right—” He vanished, only to reappear behind Anna. “Do it yourself.”  
  
Anna’s mouth opened in an ‘O’ as she cried out. Dean saw the tip of Zachariah’s sword protruding through her stomach.  
  
He jerked away from Zachariah’s sudden proximity even as he started to reach out to Anna—but Castiel was already there, lunging with intent. Castiel pulled Anna off the sword and slammed a hand against her chest.  
  
She disappeared.  
  
Castiel moved back in one fluid motion, keeping himself between Dean and Zachariah.  
  
Zachariah tightened his grip on his sword as he moved toward Castiel. “I hate doing legwork, but in your case, I’m going to make an exception.”  
  
Dean found himself going backward as Castiel continued to retreat. “Uh, Cas, now would be good time to zap us away, maybe.”  
  
“He’ll follow.”  
  
“You got another plan here?”  
  
Castiel didn’t answer, and Dean met Sam’s eyes from across the room. Sam spread his hands, clearly asking what to do. Dean only gave a tiny shrug in answer, not wanting to divert Zachariah’s attention to Sam.  
  
The next second, Zachariah’s face was full of rage and surprise before he and Castiel vanished in a blinding flash of light.  
  
Dean and Sam stood alone in Bobby’s living room.  
  
“Dude, what the hell?”  
  
“Did Castiel do something?” Sam asked.  
  
“I did.” Anna was standing in the doorway, her hands bloody and a long cut running down her arm. “We need to leave. He won’t be gone long.”  
  
“What did you do?” Dean said.  
  
“I sent them away.”  
  
He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket, moving to tie it around her arm. Dean noticed she had a sword in her hand.  
  
“You were stabbed,” Sam said.  
  
“Castiel healed me.”  
  
“Then what, you just blew him away?” Dean asked.  
  
“It had to be both of them; that’s how it works. And that’s what he _chose_ , to give you time to get away.”  
  
“How do you know?”  
  
“He served under me for millennia. I know how he thinks. He healed me, hid me, and sent me to the next room with his sword. There’s nothing else he could have wanted me to do.” She held her arm up, applying pressure herself. “We need to leave. _Now_. We have to be somewhere else before Zachariah pulls himself together.”  
  
Two minutes later, they were in the Impala, Bobby’s house disappearing behind them.  
  
“Where to?” Dean asked.  
  
“Anywhere.”  
  
He looked in the rearview mirror. With her bloody hand, Anna was drawing a symbol on the window.  
  
\-----  
  
They drove until after nightfall.  
  
Dean ended up stopping at an abandoned house that he and Sam had used before. When they got inside, Anna rattled off a list of things she said they needed. Sam went to get the stuff from the trunk.  
  
“I need a knife,” she told Dean.  
  
Dean gave her a sideways look. “You need blood, you mean.”  
  
“I need to hide us.”  
  
“I think you’ve done enough bleeding for one day.” Dean snapped his knife open, rolling up his sleeve and making a cut. “Show me, I’ll do it.”  
  
“There’s not time.” Anna dipped her own fingers in the blood running down his arm, using it to paint several squiggly symbols on the window. “That will keep them from finding us.”  
  
Sam came back in and dumped an assortment of items on the floor, since there was no other place to put them. Anna immediately sat down and drew a circle of chalk, then started placing the bowls and incense.  
  
“So what are we doing?” Sam asked.  
  
“Summoning Castiel.”  
  
“Whoa, whoa,” Dean said, leaning down to catch her arm. “The only reason Cas used to show when Sam summoned him was so no one else heard it. Won’t this lead anyone who’s listening right to us?”  
  
“Not if it’s in Enochian and is specific to him.”  
  
“Are you _sure_?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
She did the ritual next, and Dean looked expectantly around the room.  
  
“Well?”  
  
“He’ll come when he can. He knows where we are now.”  
  
“I’m going to call Ruby,” Sam said.  
  
“For _what_?”  
  
“Oh, I don’t know, Dean. Maybe the fact that the angels are also trying to start the Apocalypse? Seems like the sort of thing that might change our game plan.”  
  
Pulling his phone out of his pocket, Sam started dialing. As he put the phone to his ear, he walked into a different part of the house.  
  
Dean found himself sinking to the floor next to Anna.  
  
Neither of them said anything. Then she spoke. “I need to get my grace back.”  
  
“You wanna be an angel again?”  
  
“It doesn’t matter. If I’m an angel, the demons won’t want me, and the angels won’t be able to get me. But I can’t just go back to my life anyway. I’m not—I’m not her anymore.” She paused for a moment. “I was myself when I fell, just without the memories. But now, it’s like my human life was a drop in the bucket. It was barely a blink compared to everything else.” She shook her head. “My parents are dead, and I’m not even sad. I’m not happy; I’m sorry they’re gone, but it’s nothing to the despair I had just this morning. I already feel like an angel. So I might as well have the power that goes with it.”  
  
Dean studied her. “Why did you fall? Why would you want to be one of us?”  
  
“I wanted to feel. Feel more. And I wanted to be human. Heaven used to be full of love, but then something changed. It changed so slowly that you barely noticed it until it was done. I started to wonder what the point of it was, why we had to do the things we did. I wanted to be free.”  
  
Dean leaned back, putting his arms over his knees as he rested his head against the wall. “You said the angels talked about me. Do you know what the hell I’m supposed to be doing? What they want?”  
  
“They say that you’re the one who will stop it.”  
  
“Stop what? They’re not trying to stop Lilith or stop seals from breaking. They don’t want to stop it.”  
  
She gave him an apologetic look. “I don’t know.”

*****

  
  
He and Sam were awake into the night after Anna had fallen asleep. Sam was studying the symbols she had scratched down for him on a piece of paper; Dean found himself just staring at the candle flame.  
  
“I’ll keep watch if you want to get some sleep,” Sam said.  
  
“Not tired.”  
  
Sam looked back at the papers.  
  
“I know you heard him,” Dean said. “Alastair. About how I had promise, about how our time got cut short.”  
  
“I heard him. But you’re not talking about Hell, and I’m not pushing.”  
  
It would be easy to let the conversation die right here. Dean could say nothing, and Sam wouldn’t ask him about it. But if he said it, it would be there. Sam would know.  
  
But it would also be done, and he would never have to talk about it again, never have Sam look at him like he knew there was something Dean still wasn’t saying.  
  
“It wasn’t months, y’know,” Dean said, focusing on the wall. “Time’s different or something. It was more like thirty years there.”  
  
“Dean…”  
  
He could hear the pain in Sam’s voice.  
  
“It was pretty much what you’d expect,” Dean said. “Torture that you couldn’t even… But at the end of every day, Alastair would make me an offer. To take me off the rack if I started the torturing. And I told him no for thirty years. Because—because I was gonna get out any day. I had an angel up my sleeve, and all I had to do was just see it through.” Dean took a shaky breath as the words seemed to stick in his throat. “But then I couldn’t do it anymore, Sammy. Nothing else mattered but getting off that rack right then. And I did.” He blinked back the tears he could feel building as he continued. “I got off it and started doing things that—things that there aren’t words for. But I didn’t care, cause it wasn’t happening to me.”  
  
The silence that followed was thick. Dean could tell Sam was struggling to find something to say, anything to say. Finally, he said, “Dean, you—you held out for thirty years. No one would expect you to do more.”  
  
Dean shook his head, not looking at his brother. “Months, maybe a year after that, Cas showed up. Came all the way to Hell for me, and what was I doing? Couldn’t even hold out for him to get there. Cause I went and convinced myself that if I was gonna get off that rack, it was up to me. The things I’ve seen, the things I’ve done— When I came back, I told you I didn’t remember anything, because I wish to God I could forget.”  
  
When Sam didn’t speak, Dean glanced over at him. Sam just nodded in acknowledgement. Dean couldn’t blame him; there was really nothing to say to all that. Sam was relieved that Dean had told him, but it was obviously worse than he had imagined.  
  
Dean stretched out on the floor, putting an end to any further conversation by shutting his eyes. Maybe he wouldn’t dream at all tonight.

 

 

*****

 

 

He was awakened hours later by a knock on the door.  
  
An actual knock. Dean exchanged a cautious look with Sam as they both got to their feet.  
  
“Do demons knock?” Sam whispered. “Do angels?”  
  
“It could be a local. They might have seen the car.”  
  
“Dean,” came Castiel’s voice from the other side of the door.  
  
Dean’s eyebrows shot up.  He opened the door.  
  
Castiel was standing there, looking slightly disheveled, but otherwise fine.  
  
“You knocked?” Dean said. “You never knock.”  
  
“I can’t enter.”  
  
“The symbols,” Dean realized. “I thought they just hid us.”  
  
“They do both. I need you to come outside.”  
  
Dean stepped onto the porch. “Okay, now what?”  
  
Castiel put a hand to Dean’s chest, and then something inside him was burning. As quickly as it started, it was over.  
  
“What did you do?” he gasped.  
  
“Hid you with Enochian sigils.”  
  
Dean spread his hand over his chest. “Did you just brand me with it?”  
  
“No, I carved it into your ribs.”  
  
“Jesus, Cas. That’s the kind of shit you’re supposed to tell a guy about.”  
  
“My apologies.” Castiel didn’t sound very apologetic. He directed a look at Sam.  
  
“Oh,” Sam said. “You, uh, want me to—?”  
  
“If you wish to be hidden from angels.”  
  
Sam glanced at Dean.  
  
“Will they be able to find us through Sam?” Dean asked.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Sam stepped out. “Do it.”  
  
Castiel touched Sam’s chest, and then looked at Dean. Dean went inside and swiped his hand across the sigils on the window, breaking them. Castiel walked in. He nodded at Anna, who had woken up.  
  
“I need my grace,” she said without preamble.  
  
“We need to move quickly.”  
  
She walked to him, he touched her shoulder, and they both disappeared.  
  
“Is he always like that?” Sam asked.  
  
“Like what?”  
  
“I don’t know. It’s just—every time I’ve seen him, he’s always in a hurry. Though I suppose it’s usually because something horrible is happening.”  
  
Dean caught a glimpse of headlights on the road. A minute later, a car pulled up out front. “Speaking of something horrible,” he muttered.  
  
“I need to talk to her, Dean.”  
  
“Fine. You talk, I’m going to find us something to eat.”  
  
“It’s the middle of the night.”  
  
“There’ll be a gas station open somewhere.”  
  
He passed Ruby in the driveway, walking by her without comment.  
  
“Hello to you, too,” she said.  
  
Dean got in the Impala and shut the door.  
  
\-----  
  
When he returned, Ruby’s car was still there. Dean left Sam’s food in the Impala and grabbed the beers he’d bought. He went around to the back of the house and sat down on the ground against the side of an old shed.  
  
Dean opened a bottle, letting the night air settle around him. This place was in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nothing but fields. If it hadn’t been for Ruby’s presence inside, it would almost be nice.  
  
He was on his third beer when he heard footsteps approaching.  
  
Castiel walked around the side of the building. “You weren’t inside,” he said. “Sam said you were out here.”  
  
Dean smirked. “You didn’t wanna hang out with the demon, either?”  
  
“I want to be here.”  
  
Dean gave a nod before taking a drink. Ruby aside, it wasn’t really a surprise that Castiel would end up wherever he was.  
  
Castiel slowly sat down beside him. “I informed Sam of the situation.”  
  
“What is the situation? Where’s Anna? You get her grace back?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“And?” Dean asked.  
  
“Since Anna wasn’t—eliminated, I knew Heaven’s next step would be to keep her from regaining her grace. But my defection diverted their attention. The location of her grace was known, but they hadn’t yet interfered with it. She’s now restored.”  
  
“Where is she?”  
  
“Her human body was destroyed.”  
  
Dean took another drink.  
  
“So, about all that. All that with Anna.” He hadn’t been able to make complete sense of what Castiel had said in his dream when it had happened, but after the confrontation at Bobby’s, there was a significance to Castiel’s words that had fallen into place. “You didn’t want me to see you do it even more than you didn’t want to do it. Am I right?”  
  
Castiel looked down. “I knew that if I had to take her from you—to kill her in front of you, it would destroy something.” He paused. “My orders were regrettable, but I would have regretted your loss more.”  
  
“Man, that’s kind of messed up.”  
  
“Perhaps.” Castiel met his gaze. “But if it weren’t the case, I wouldn’t be here.”  
  
“I guess I should say thanks for that,” Dean said awkwardly. “What you did, it’s a lot.”  
  
“I’ve been cut off from Heaven and marked as a traitor.” He said it without any feeling at all.  
  
Dean chuckled in spite of himself. “Man, you’re gonna start wishing you’d never met me. Look what happens.”  
  
“I value this world and did not want to see humanity destroyed. That was not you. Though you were the one I acted for.” Castiel exhaled, looking out into the night. “Dean, if I had known—”  
  
“They really didn’t tell you anything, did they?”  
  
“Given my past actions, it’s hardly surprising. But I was a soldier, nothing more, and I was only needed to do one thing.”  
  
“To keep me in line, right. That worked.”  
  
“I’m sure it seemed like a good idea at the time,” Castiel said, deadpan.  
  
Dean grinned, before shaking his head. “And all the other angels, they really think they’re saving the world?”  
  
“Yes. But they would most likely follow orders even if the opposite were true.”  
  
“How does that even work?”  
  
“Our orders come from Heaven; that makes them just. You must understand that we don’t question things the way that you do.”  
  
Dean studied Castiel in the dim moonlight. “You did.”  
  
Castiel turned toward him. “I believe my situation was unique.”  
  
There was a beat of silence.  
  
“So how screwed are we?” Dean asked.  
  
“There will be a standing order to kill me on sight for disobedience. More than that, I rebelled in a time of war and actively worked against Heaven’s efforts by hiding you from them. It will not be difficult for Heaven to make me seem an adversary of God.”  
  
“In other words, you’re public enemy number one.”  
  
“They will also continue to search for you.”  
  
“Yeah, about that. What do they want with me?”  
  
Castiel hesitated. “Dean, there’s something you should know.”  
  
“There’s a conversation starter that never ends well,” Dean muttered.  
  
“The first seal was broken when the righteous man shed blood in Hell.” Castiel paused again. “Dean, when you broke, it broke.”  
  
“Are you saying I broke the first seal?”  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
Dean didn’t even know what to do with that. Instead, he said, “How long have you known?”  
  
“Since I was informed during my time in Heaven.”  
  
“Damn it, Cas.”  
  
“I was ordered not to tell you.”  
  
“I broke the first seal,” Dean repeated. “I started all this. This whole thing is my fault.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“How is this not my fault?” Dean asked, his voice rising. “How, huh?”  
  
“It’s not blame that falls you, Dean. It’s fate.”  
  
“Fate? Destiny? God’s plan? That was just a bunch of lies to keep you in line. It’s crap, Cas. There’s nothing but us and the shitty decisions we make.”  
  
“Despite my brothers’ actions, some things that cannot be altered,” Castiel said, his expression intent. “There is a design here.”  
  
Dean rolled his head back against the building, looking up at the sky. “You actually believe that. Man, believe in God all you want, but fate? C’mon.”  
  
“I don’t believe our paths would have crossed otherwise.”  
  
“Right. Cause you saving me from Hell was destiny.” Dean finished off his forgotten beer and threw the bottle into the darkness in frustration. “Then why wasn’t it destiny that I couldn’t fucking hold out longer? Oh, wait—I guess this means the Apocalypse was all part of God’s plan,” he scoffed. “Well, that’s okay, then. I shouldn’t feel bad, cause it was _meant_ to happen.”  
  
“You didn’t know what your actions would bring. Nor did I. Our choices are our own, but some things will always come to pass.”  
  
“Dude, that doesn’t even make sense.”  
  
Castiel tilted his head, studying Dean. “Why do you not blame me for not reaching you in time instead?”  
  
“ _I’m_ the one who did it, Cas. Me, not you.”  
  
“No,” Castiel said. “It was done to you.”  
  
Dean snorted. “What’s that supposed to mean? That it doesn’t matter?”  
  
“That the blame lies with those who made you their instrument.”  
  
“Guess now I know why Alastair was so interested. And here I thought everyone got the special treatment.” Dean huffed, a sad sounding laugh. “Every day, he asked me. Like he knew that even if I didn’t give today, I might tomorrow. And I proved him right.” He looked in Castiel’s direction. “I didn’t think you were coming. I mean, not like I thought you just left me there, but after so long, it was easier to think something had happened. Easier to think that if I was gonna get out of that mess, I had to do it myself. Never knew that was gonna end the world.”  
  
“As I never imagined you would be hidden so deeply in the pits of Hell or that it would take me so long to reach you.”  
  
Dean eyed him skeptically. “What, you thought it would be a piece of cake?”  
  
“No. But neither did I think it would be the difficulty it was. It didn’t occur to me that you would be significant to anyone but myself.”  
  
“You said other angels were in Hell to get me,” Dean said, realizing that Castiel was talking about more than Alastair. “Why?”  
  
“Because the righteous man who begins it is also the only one who can finish it.”  
  
“But they _want_ the Apocalypse. And apparently I handed that to them on a silver platter. They don’t want to stop it. Why wouldn’t they just leave me there?”  
  
“I don’t know.”  
  
Castiel was silent for a long moment. A slight breeze blew, rustling the leaves of the tree overhead.  
  
“Dean, if the one who starts it is the only one who can finish it, perhaps that’s the sole reason it fell to you to start it. Not all who would break would be able to defy Heaven as you did. And Heaven’s efforts must be stopped.” He looked into the night again, turning his profile to Dean. “No matter what God’s plan is, it cannot end in the destruction of Earth. And we’re the only ones placed to prevent that.”  
  
“Who knows. Maybe. Sure would be easier if God just came out and said this crap, though. Or better yet, turned up himself and got your family back in line.”  
  
“I’ve considered looking for Him.”  
  
Dean raised an eyebrow.  
  
“He isn’t in Heaven. He has to be somewhere.”  
  
“You want to take off and see if you can stumble across God? That’s your plan?”  
  
“I considered it.”  
  
Dean shifted uneasily. “Cas, I could really use you here. This whole thing—I don’t know what to do. You’re the only line we’ve got on this, and if you disappear on some God hunt— I need you to be around, okay?” He looked at Castiel out of the corner of his eye, and found Castiel staring him solemnly.  
  
“All right.” Castiel nodded once. Then, switching tracks, he said, “Did Anna teach you the banishing sigil?”  
  
“She drew it for Sam. I think I’ve got it.”  
  
Castiel swiped his hand in the dirt between them, smoothing it out. “Show me.”

*****

  
  
The sky was beginning to lighten when Dean heard the sound of tires on the gravel of the driveway. Ruby was gone.  
  
He picked himself up off the ground, gesturing for Castiel to do the same. “C’mon.”  
  
Castiel followed him back to the house.  
  
Sam looked toward the door when they came in. He didn’t say anything about Dean avoiding Ruby. Instead, he got straight to business.  
  
“Ruby says half the seals have been broken.”  
  
Sam looked at Castiel, who nodded.  
  
“Approximately, yes.”  
  
“So where does that leave us?”  
  
“Screwed,” Dean said.  
  
“Heaven will be hunting all of us,” Castiel said to Sam. “And they will continue to let seals fall.”  
  
“Is there _anyone_ else who would help us? Who would try to stop this?”  
  
“No.”  
  
Sam looked disappointed. “Are you sure?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“But if we explained things? Surely some other angels would listen—”  
  
“The last angel who rebelled was Lucifer,” Castiel said evenly. “I believe you know what happened to him.”  
  
“Okay,” Sam said, moving right along. “Then we need to kill Lilith. We can’t stop the seals from breaking, and we’re on our own. Killing Lilith is the only way we can stop this thing.”  
  
“I agree,” Castiel said.  
  
“Any idea where Lilith _is_?” Dean said.  
  
“Ruby’s working on it.”  
  
“Of course she is. Why can’t we find Lilith like we did last time?”  
  
“Apparently she’s much better at hiding now.”  
  
Dean sighed. “There’s nothing we can do now, so I say we go find a motel and some beds and get a decent day’s sleep. No reason to stay here.”  
  
“Yeah. Okay.”  
  
Sam started gathering up their stuff, and Dean turned to Castiel. “You wanna check in with us later?”  
  
“Dean, you’re hidden from angels. All angels. I won’t be able to find you unless I already know where you are.”  
  
“Even if I—pray?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Well, I’m not fucking opening a vein and doing an Enochian summoning ritual every time I need to talk to you.” Dean reached into his pocket, grabbing his phone and shoving it at Castiel. “Keep that for now. I’ll grab a pre-paid one for you after I get some sleep.”  
  
Castiel closed his hand over the phone. “Thank you.”  
  
As soon as he was gone, Dean turned to Sam.  
  
“You mean _you_ need to kill Lilith,” Dean said. “Don’t you?”  
  
Sam shoved the last of his things in his bag. “If we can’t stop what she’s doing, then we need to stop her. And yeah, I’m the best shot at that. We’re out of options.”  
  
“That what Ruby convinced you of?”  
  
“It’s what _I_ decided, Dean.”  
  
“Right.”  
  
“Did you know that Lilith’s powers don’t work on me? You think there might be a reason for that, that maybe I’m _supposed_ to kill her? We needed to kill her before, but now? She’s breaking seals and trying to free Lucifer. Ruby barely heard about seals to begin with, and now Castiel isn’t going to know about any, either. We lost the knife to Alastair—oh, and it turns out that the angels are also trying to end the world.” Sam laughed, bitter. “I wanted to believe so badly in some higher power. But this is what I’ve been praying to? They don’t care. Forget them helping us—they’re trying to destroy us.”  
  
He shouldered his bag, moving to the door. “So yeah. That’s what I mean. I need to kill Lilith.”

*****

  
  
Three days later, Bobby called, wanting to know why the bulbs in the panic room were shattered on the floor and what the hell blood was doing painted on the dining room wall. Dean wondered how you were supposed to tell someone that Armageddon was most definitely under way. He gave Bobby a straightforward rundown, because he didn’t know how to do anything else.  
  
Afterward, he put a quarter in the Magic Fingers and went back to doing absolutely nothing. They had been lying low since the encounter with Zachariah. Castiel had been in and out, but all in all, he didn’t have much more to go on than they did. He may have rebelled, but that didn’t mean that the balance had shifted to their favor. There was still no easy way out of this.  
  
But Dean was surprised by how much he enjoyed having Castiel around again. He knew he hadn’t liked dealing with Castiel’s abrupt appearances to give him orders from Heaven, but it wasn’t until Castiel was once again spending time with him for no particular reason that he realized he’d missed the company.  
  
Dean’s quarter ran out, and after a moment, he found himself reaching for the phone and dialing Castiel’s number.  
  
He answered on the first ring. “Hello, Dean.”  
  
Dean chuckled. “You figure out the Caller ID?”  
  
“You’re the only one who calls me.”  
  
“Well, uh, we’re still here.”  
  
“Understood.”  
  
Castiel hung up. A second later, he was standing in the room.  
  
Dean closed his phone. “Man, talking to you on a cell phone will never not be weird.”  
  
“I assumed you would find it more natural than praying.”  
  
Dean didn’t know how to explain the difference between talking to air and having Castiel appear, and talking into a phone and asking him to appear. Castiel came either way, but Dean sort of figured he could take or leave the prayers if he wanted to, but he always answered the phone. Anyway, Dean had almost gotten used to the praying.  
  
“You know there’s nothing going on here?” Dean said, standing up. “I mean, if you’ve got something else you need to be doing.”  
  
“I don’t.”  
  
“It is the Apocalypse.”  
  
“I’m aware.”  
  
Dean smirked, moving past him.  
  
“Where’s Sam?” Castiel asked.  
  
“Out,” Dean said flatly.  
  
“Ah.”  
  
Dean went to the fridge and pulled out beer. The first night they’d spent at the motel, Sam had left to do God knows what with his psychic stuff. After the inevitable argument the next morning, Dean had settled into a sort of displeased resignation. He managed by sheer willpower not to snap at Sam, who similarly managed not to bring up anything to do with his extracurricular activities.  
  
“What do you think about all this?” Dean asked. “Sam’s powers?”  
  
“It’s possible he may be the key to killing Lilith,” Castiel said slowly. “Heaven took great trouble to inform you of your brother’s abilities and their origin.”  
  
“Damn it, Cas, you’re supposed to give me something to work with here. You saying he should just go with it? Use the demon powers? Not like there’s gonna be a catch or anything.”  
  
Castiel gave a barely there shrug. “Dean, I don’t know.”  
  
“Well, I don’t care,” Dean said. “Maybe Sam _can_ kill her and stop everything. But I’m not gonna just stand here and let him use this demon crap to do it.”  
  
He took a long drink of beer.  
  
“But you know?” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t have a damn clue how to stop him. We’ve been round and round about his powers. We’ve fought about it for the last two days. But he’s dead set on it. I don’t know what to do.” Dean kept going before thinking better of it, saying, “I don’t know what do to about any of this, Cas. How are we supposed to stop this? It’s too much. I spent all day trying to track demonic omens and came up with nothing. Even you haven’t been able to find any leads. The world’s still going to Hell and there’s not a single thing we can do.”  
  
“I wish I had the answers, Dean. Truly, I do.”  
  
Dean nodded in acknowledgement before sitting down at the table. Castiel followed, pulling out the other chair and taking a seat.  
  
“I wish that I had more to offer you,” Castiel said.  
  
“Dude, you rebelled against Heaven.”  
  
“And it has accomplished nothing. I understand your dilemma.”  
  
“Well, call me selfish, but I don’t call saving our asses from Zachariah nothing.” He smirked. “Cause that wasn’t half bad.”  
  
The corner of Castiel’s mouth turned up. Then he said, “I don’t know what the answer is. But I believe there is one, and we will find it.”  
  
“You really think that?”  
  
Castiel gave him a knowing look. “You say there’s nothing you can do. But will you stop trying?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Cause it’s the world,” Dean said. “And if there was ever a ship worth going down with, this is it.”  
  
“Then we’re agreed.”  
  
Dean raised his bottle in mock salute. “To going down with the ship.”  
  
He finished the beer and set the bottle on the table with a loud thud.  
  
“There is something you should be aware of,” Castiel started. “It’s come to my attention that angels are being murdered.”  
  
“And?”  
  
Castiel’s brow furrowed.  
  
“Hey, if something’s picking off the angels, _great_ ,” Dean said, spreading his hands. “I’ll take anything we can get.”  
  
“Heaven thinks I’m responsible.”  
  
“Oh. I’m guessing that’s bad.”  
  
“Someone is taking advantage of my rebellion to lay the blame at my feet. Whether Heaven truly believes I’ve been killing members of my garrison or whether I’m merely convenient to blame, the result is the same. I’ve become a priority.”  
  
Dean suddenly wondered what Castiel did when he wasn’t with them. He doubted that appreciating Earth was on the menu anymore.  
  
“Cas.”  
  
Castiel looked at him.  
  
“Take care of yourself.”

*****

  
  
Since they had no leads on the Apocalypse, Dean found himself pulling up the obits section for the nearest major city. If they couldn’t stop the end of the world today, they could damn well get back on the job and save some ordinary people.  
  
Sam didn’t comment when Dean said he had a hunt. He just piled in the car after Dean and then they were on the road.  
  
After doing nothing but sitting around waiting for something to happen, Dean already felt better. Having the Impala’s steering wheel under his hands and the open highway stretching before him was routine. There might not be anything he could do about what would happen tomorrow, but today he was going to do his job.

*****

  
  
The next time Castiel appeared, he looked weary.  
  
He had also called Dean first, a thing that hadn’t happened before. Dean had given him their current location. Well, his current location, as Sam was gone again.  
  
“I killed Uriel,” Castiel announced, when he arrived in the motel room.  
  
It took Dean a second to place Uriel as the jerk who was going to destroy a town. He stared up at Castiel, not moving from where he was reclined on the bed. “Did he hunt you down or something?”  
  
“Yes, though not like you think. He had rebelled and wanted me to join him. Uriel was the one killing the members of the garrison.”  
  
Dean crossed his arms, getting comfortable. “Don’t get me wrong, I thought Uriel was a dick, but isn’t a rebellious angel a rebellious angel? They’re kind of in short supply.”  
  
“Uriel looked upon humanity with revulsion.”  
  
“Meaning?”  
  
“He served Lucifer, and was killing those who refused to join him.” Castiel exhaled, his shoulders dropping. He sat down on the edge of the bed, looking not at Dean, but towards the window. “It’s an irony that he rebelled to raise Lucifer, the very thing Heaven is trying to achieve. He and his followers never knew of their true plans.” Castiel paused. “We exchanged words, and when I refused, he engaged me in combat. I won.”  
  
After a minute, Dean said, “He was doing a pretty good job of making you his scapegoat. Why’d he want to team up?”  
  
“I had rebelled; he had rebelled. He couldn’t fathom that our causes would not be the same. And he needed a tactician. Apparently I’m very good,” he added, deadpan.  
  
Dean laughed abruptly. “Hey, I said you were a sneaky bastard. If that equals awesome tactician for angels, more power to you.”  
  
“Uriel said that what I did in Hell was magnificent.” Castiel’s expression was distant. “He used my rescue of you as an example of my abilities, yet the meaning of the action he praised was lost on him.”  
  
Dean wasn’t sure how they’d ended up talking about Hell. He’d been doing a pretty good job of not talking—or thinking—about Hell since the night he’d spilled his guts to Sam. But he couldn’t help asking the question that was hanging there. “What did you do?”  
  
Castiel turned to face him. “Toward the end, I became aware of the angels who were sent to retrieve you. I used their lines to my advantage without them ever realizing I was there until I had you. The difficulty of such a maneuver was great, so my success was—”  
  
“Seriously awesome?”  
  
“In a word.”  
  
Dean chuckled. Then, “So are we gonna have a problem with these angels of Uriel’s?”  
  
“No. Anna is taking care of them.”  
  
Dean was surprised. “She’s back?”  
  
Castiel nodded. “Her appearance created the distraction that allowed me to land the final blow. Afterward, we spoke and agreed on the best use of our resources.”  
  
“I thought she didn’t have a body anymore.”  
  
“Her human form has been recreated. She mentioned a mutual acquaintance.” He paused, glancing at the floor. “I’ve begun searching for Gabriel.”  
  
Dean frowned as he realized where Castiel was going with this. “The archangel? The guy who was going to kill you if you even mentioned him?”  
  
“Every angel in Heaven has orders to kill me on sight. Gabriel is no longer a unique risk.”  
  
“You think he’ll help us?”  
  
“I believe he may have knowledge of God’s whereabouts.”  
  
“You’re back to finding God again?” Dean sighed. “I thought we went through this. It’s a waste of time.”  
  
“I disagree. But looking for God this way is not a search without direction. Gabriel is to be found, and I must pursue anything that could be of use to us.”  
  
“If you say so,” Dean muttered. So much for Castiel being around. “I guess this means you’re taking off for a while?”  
  
“Yes.” Then Castiel tilted his head, staring straight at him. “But if you call, I will return immediately.”

*****

  
  
He and Sam threw themselves into hunting for the next few weeks. As soon as one case ended, Dean found them another. They burnt a ghost in Colorado, dealt with a creepy human problem in Nebraska, destroyed a cursed object in Kansas, and caught a guy who was practicing some serious black magic.  
  
It would have almost been like normal except for the looming Apocalypse, and the fact that Ruby seemed to turn up in every few towns they visited. Though even when she wasn’t there, that didn’t mean that things were good. Half the time, Sam would leave on his own in the evening and not come back until the middle of the night. Dean knew he was using his powers.  
  
The only way Dean managed not to argue about it every time was to pretend like it wasn’t happening. He didn’t know what else to do because there was no getting anywhere with any of it. He couldn’t talk about it with Sam; he couldn’t even argue about it with Sam at this point.  
  
They were fine on hunts, but neither one of them could get around the tension that occasionally reared its head. But they didn’t talk about it, and life went on.  
  
One night, he and Sam were unloading the car at a shabby downtown motel when a man approached them.  
  
“Excuse me, but have you ever taken time to think about God’s plan for you?”  
  
He had a bundle of brochures and a scarily sincere smile.  
  
“No.” Dean slammed the trunk and shouldered his bag. “But if you see him, tell him to drop me a line.”  
  
He pushed past the guy without giving him a second glance.  
  
The next morning, Dean Smith woke up in his high rise apartment and went to work.

*****

  
  
Dean wondered how he was supposed to tell his boss he was quitting. He certainly couldn’t tell him the truth—that he and some guy from tech support had killed a ghost and had an existential crisis together.  
  
He cleared his throat. “The thing is, I’m giving my notice. There’s—there’s some other work I have to do, work that’s very important to me.”  
  
Mr. Adler frowned. “You mean another position? Has some other company been—”  
  
“No. No, nothing like that.” Dean shifted in his chair. “I don’t know how to explain it, but this isn’t who I’m supposed to be.”  
  
“That,” Mr. Adler said, “is exactly what I wanted to hear.” He leaned forward and pressed two fingers to Dean’s forehead. “Welcome back.”  
  
Dean jumped up the instant he recognized Zachariah.  
  
“How did you find us?”  
  
“I’ll admit, we had to resort to some unorthodox methods. But you can’t argue with results, and here you are. I told you, we’re speeding up the schedule, so finding you has been our number one priority.”  
  
“All right, so you got me. Was this just some sort of hallucination?”  
  
“Hardly. It’s a real haunting, in a real building, in a real city. I just dropped you in without the benefit of your memories.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“To prove a point. That this is in your blood. In more ways than one.” Zachariah smiled to himself. “Hunting is what you were meant to do.”  
  
“I got no problem with hunting,” Dean said, moving around the desk.  
  
“My point,” Zachariah said, stepping closer, “is that you’ll find your way back to this in the dark. And the biggest hunt you could imagine is coming up. You were made for this. You might say it’s your destiny.”  
  
“What about Sam? Why drag him in?”  
  
“Sam…” Zachariah trailed off. “He’s got some issues, doesn’t he? You should have seen the way he quit. But Sam’s very dedicated to what he thinks he needs to do. And so should you be.” He smiled. “You were _chosen_ for this. That’s _why_ we need you. I wasn’t lying about that.”  
  
“Because I’m supposed to stop it? Huh? Stop what? You don’t want to stop Lilith or the Apocalypse.”  
  
“No. We don’t.” Zachariah turned, looking out the window before glancing back at Dean. “Lucifer. You’re going to stop Lucifer. That’s your destiny, Dean. That’s what we need you for.”  
  
“How about not letting him out to begin with? Ever think of that?” Dean waved his hand at the office. “Was that the point of this? To get me to join you? You hoping I’d think personally icing the devil is worth destroying the world?”  
  
“I thought the challenge might tempt you.” Then Zachariah’s expression darkened. “But the point was to make a point. You’ll have plenty of time to think it over.”  
  
“What’s that supposed to mean?”  
  
Zachariah laughed. “If you think I’m turning you loose again, you haven’t been paying attention. You’re going to stay where I can keep an eye on you until you decide to be agreeable. This?” He spread his arms. “This was just a creative lesson.”  
  
The door to the office opened. “You call _this_ a creative lesson? Please.”  
  
The Trickster walked in, looking unimpressed.  
  
Zachariah opened his mouth, but didn’t even get a word out before the Trickster snapped his fingers. Zachariah vanished in a weird implosion of light.  
  
“I should have known you had something to do with this,” Dean said.  
  
“I’m actually insulted. This is so uncreative it’s beneath me.” He looked around, shaking his head. “Amateur.”  
  
“Yeah, well, as much as I’d like to see you tangle with an angel, I’d rather get out of here before he comes back.” Dean made for the door. But it wouldn’t open, no matter how hard he pulled.  
  
The Trickster’s voice drifted across the room. “Zachariah? He’s gone.”  
  
Dean slowly turned around. “What do you mean, gone?”  
  
“I mean gone.” He smiled. “From existence.”  
  
“Just like that, huh?”  
  
“Just like that. It could have been more… explosive, but I like to save the good stuff for the tabloids.”  
  
“I don’t believe you. You don’t have the juice to gank something like Zachariah.”  
  
The Trickster sat down in one of the chairs, leaning back and putting his feet up on the desk. He gave Dean a smug look.  
  
“Castiel has been looking for me.”  
  
“Why would Cas be looking for—” Dean cut himself off as a horrible idea occurred to him.  
  
“We ran into each other once. I think I scared him.”  
  
“No,” Dean said, refusing to believe what he thought he was hearing. “ _You_?”  
  
He smirked. “Guilty.”  
  
“ _You_? An archangel?”  
  
“There’s not much family resemblance, I know.” The Trickster— _Gabriel_ —gestured to the desk. “Have a seat.”  
  
Dean remained where he was.  
  
“I said have a seat,” Gabriel repeated cheerfully. He snapped his fingers, and Dean found himself behind the desk.  
  
Gabriel raised an eyebrow. Dean decided not to get up again.  
  
“How did you even find us? I thought Cas hid us from you guys.”  
  
“ _He_ doesn’t seem to have any problems finding you.” Gabriel pursed his lips. “But Castiel himself is fairly easy to find, especially when he’s looking for me. I’ve been keeping an eye on things.”  
  
“Like us.”  
  
“Bingo.”  
  
“And how does an archangel end up a trickster?”  
  
“I had to make my own fun.” Gabriel crossed his arms. “But call it my own private witness protection. Heaven was tearing itself apart, so I left. I got a new gig. And it worked until someone started an Apocalypse and got the planet crawling with angels. Do you know how annoying that is?”  
  
“My heart bleeds.” Dean shook his head. “Why are you even talking to me? Cas acted like you were gonna gank him if he blew your cover.”  
  
“I’ve decided I’m more interested in preserving the status quo. And you yahoos have got a shot at that.”  
  
“Oh, I get it. You want us to do your dirty work, but you’re not gonna step up. Why don’t you just go kill Lilith yourself?”  
  
“Because I like my life the way it is. In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve got a good thing going here. I’m throwing you a bone, but I’m not getting involved.”  
  
“You’re a coward.”  
  
Gabriel shrugged. “Maybe. But you don’t know my family.”  
  
“What’s that supposed to mean?”  
  
“Try having Lucifer as a brother and see what you end up doing. What you guys call the Apocalypse, I used to call Sunday dinner. I’d rather _not_ get dragged back into that.”  
  
“So? Even if the Apocalypse comes, you’re an archangel. Your vacation might be ruined, but you’ll make it. I don’t see why you care.” Dean narrowed his eyes when Gabriel didn’t answer. “C’mon, what’s really in it for you?”  
  
Gabriel took his feet off the desk and leaned forward in the chair, leveling a stare at Dean. “This isn’t about a war between Heaven and Hell. This is about something that’s been going on since we were created. It’s about two brothers who betrayed each other.”  
  
“And?”  
  
Gabriel brought his hands together. “If Lucifer escapes, he or Michael will end up killing the other one. I don’t want that. I’d rather Lucifer stay trapped until the end of time than to have to sit back and watch my brothers kill each other.”  
  
“Then help us stop it.”  
  
“Hey, I got Zachariah off your back. Taking care of him is not nothing, bucko.”  
  
“There’s not some other douchebag to take his place?”  
  
“Michael won’t be able to find someone else that creative that quickly.”  
  
“And what’s to stop Michael himself from showing up?”  
  
Gabriel laughed, throwing back his head. “Believe me, Michael’s vessel will never say yes. _And_ he’s too big on destiny to set foot here unless Lucifer is released. So right now, he’s in Heaven, there’s no middle management, and the foot soldiers are not that great at thinking on their own, trust me.”  
  
Dean glared. “So if you’re not gonna help, how are you gonna help?”  
  
A book materialized in Gabriel’s hands. He tossed it between them on the desk.  
  
_Supernatural: Salvation_ was printed across the front.  
  
“What the hell is this for?”  
  
“Take a look.”  
  
Dean skimmed the back cover. His eyes widened, and he started thumbing through the book. “What is this? Another trick?”  
  
“I had nothing to do with it.”  
  
“Right.”  
  
“Scout’s honor.” He smirked.  
  
“This is our lives, written right here!”  
  
Gabriel wiggled his eyebrows. “Weird, huh? You should probably look into that.”  
  
Then he snapped his fingers, and the world shifted.

*****

  
  
“The Trickster,” Sam said. “The _Trickster_?”  
  
“Apparently.”  
  
“Is Gabriel. The archangel.”  
  
“Hey, I knew they were all douches. This only confirms it.”  
  
They were back in the crummy motel they had started from, like Zachariah had never taken them away. It was days later, but all of their stuff was still there, and Dean didn’t question it.  
  
Sam shook his head. “To think, we met an angel all those years ago and didn’t even know it.”  
  
“Yeah, he’s real angelic.”  
  
“And he gave you this?” Sam picked up the book, before opening his computer and typing something in. After a moment he said, “Apparently it’s a whole series. It looks like there are even some fan sites.” He frowned. “This seems pretty elaborate to be a trick.”  
  
Dean wasn’t convinced. “More elaborate than us thinking we were office workers?”  
  
“Point.”  
  
“I’m calling Cas,” he said, opening his phone.  
  
Dean rattled off their location to Castiel, who appeared a few seconds later.  
  
“I met Gabriel,” Dean said.  
  
“Ah.” Castiel shifted. “Did he find you himself, or did you encounter him on a hunt?”  
  
“Yeah, you never mentioned that he was the Trickster.”  
  
“I spoke of Gabriel as little as possible. He’s unpredictable.”  
  
“He’s a bloody, violent monster. He was bad enough when he was the Trickster, but now it turns out that this is the guy who outclasses you?”  
  
“As I said.” Apparently deciding that they had already had this conversation, Castiel asked, “What did he want?”  
  
“You got me. He _says_ he doesn’t want Lucifer out of the cage, and that he’d throw us a bone. That was after he waltzed in like he owned the place and nuked Zachariah.”  
  
Castiel looked at him sharply. “Zachariah had you?”  
  
“Long story. We’re fine.” Dean tossed the book to Castiel. “Gabriel flung this at me before he sent us back here. Is it real, or something he cooked up?”  
  
Castiel turned the book over in his hands before opening it and skimming a few pages. “These are the words of a prophet.”  
  
“Hang on, a prophet?”  
  
“Carver Edlund’s a prophet?” Sam said.  
  
“No.”  
  
“But you just said—”  
  
“I know the name of every prophet,” Castiel said, closing the book. “Carver Edlund is not one.”  
  
Sam looked thoughtful. “Pen name?”  
  
“Whatever it is, we need to find this guy,” Dean said. “This is just creepy.”  
  
\-----  
  
“The more I read, the creepier it gets.” Dean threw the book down. “You having any luck?”  
  
Sam glanced up from where he sat at the table. “There’s really not much besides what the first few searches turned up. The books had almost zero circulation, and were put out by a publisher that went bankrupt this year. There’s a cult following, but that’s about it.”  
  
“What about Carver Edlund?”  
  
“Nothing. We’re gonna have to find him the old fashioned way.”  
  
“Then what have you been doing over there for so long?”  
  
“I was looking at a few of the fan sites,” Sam said. “They’re, um, interesting.”  
  
“Interesting how?” Dean asked, getting up.  
  
Sam pushed the laptop in his direction. “See for yourself.”  
  
Dean started scanning the page that Sam was on. He grinned as he read some of the comments. Then he frowned. “What’s a slash fan?”  
  
“It means they’re a fan of the ‘characters’ being together. _Together_ together.”  
  
“Characters?” Dean made a face of disbelief. “Wait, you mean _us_? You and me?”  
  
“Yeah. Castiel, too,” Sam said, turning the laptop around again. He glanced at the screen. “Apparently, you and he have great literary symmetry. You set him free from holy fire, and then he pulled you out of Hell. And we—we’re ‘erotically codependent’.”  
  
Dean slammed the laptop shut. “Stop looking at that. It’s sick.”

*****

  
  
They made it to the old publisher’s office in two days, and managed to get the name Chuck Shurley from her.  
  
Dean called Castiel from the car.  
  
“The name Chuck Shurley ring any bells?”  
  
“He’s a prophet.”  
  
“Okay, so this is our guy. What’s the plan?”  
  
“Plan?”  
  
“What does he know?”  
  
“Everything,” Castiel said simply. “Perhaps that’s why Gabriel alerted you to his existence.”  
  
“Well, we’ll be at—”  
  
“Dean, I can’t come.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Prophets are very special. They’re protected. If anything threatens a prophet, an archangel will appear to destroy that threat.”  
  
Dean frowned. “So? You’re not gonna threaten the prophet.”  
  
“I rebelled against Heaven. My presence alone would be construed as such. Putting myself in the archangel’s path would be unwise.”  
  
“Let me get this straight—there’s an archangel watching over Chuck?”  
  
“Yes. Probably Raphael,” Castiel added, as if that meant anything to Dean.  
  
“Will Heaven be able to find _us_ if we go there?”  
  
“The sigils will hide you from any angel. As long as the prophet isn’t endangered.”  
  
“Dude, I’m not gonna endanger the prophet.”  
  
“See that you don’t.”  
  
Dean hung up.  
  
“So?” Sam asked.  
  
“Apparently the prophet Chuck has an archangel on his shoulder. Cas can’t come.”  
  
\-----  
  
Dean cut the engine when they pulled up in front of the house.  
  
He and Sam exchanged glances as they got out of the Impala and walked to the door. Dean knocked. Eventually, the door was opened by a guy in a bathrobe.  
  
He blinked against the daylight. “Yeah?”  
  
“Are you Chuck Shurley?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“The Chuck Shurley who writes the _Supernatural_ books?”  
  
“Maybe. Why?”  
  
“I’m Dean Winchester and this is my brother, Sam. We’ve got some questions about the Apocalypse.”  
  
Chuck stared at them.  
  
Then he said, “Oh, God,” put a hand to his head, and walked back inside. The door was left open behind him.  
  
Sam raised an eyebrow. Dean shrugged. Slowly, they followed Chuck in.  
  
“Chuck?” Sam asked. “We just want to talk to you.”  
  
A moan came from the couch. “It’s too early for this.”  
  
“Dude, it’s eleven thirty,” Dean said.  
  
Chuck sat up. “My dreams are coming true. I’ve gone insane.”  
  
“You’re not insane.” Sam stopped in the middle of the room and looked down at Chuck.  
  
“You show up at my door and I’m not insane? You, acting just like—you!” Chuck said, gesturing wildly. “And using the name!”  
  
“The name?”  
  
“Winchester.”  
  
“It’s our name,” Dean said.  
  
“I never told anyone that. I never even wrote that down. If you’re here, I’m hallucinating. I’ve lost it.”  
  
“You’re not insane. We’re real.” He clapped a hand to Chuck’s shoulder. “See, real.”  
  
Chuck nodded, looking like he was accepting things. However, after that, he said, “Then I’m a god.”  
  
“You’re not a god.” Dean shook his head.  
  
“I write things and they come to life. No, I’m definitely a god.”  
  
“Chuck,” Sam said, “you’re a prophet. What you’re seeing is real. But you’re not inventing it, you’re not creating it, you’re just—tuned into it. You’re a prophet. Really.”  
  
Chuck put his head between his hands and moaned again.  
  
Sam glanced at Dean, shrugging. Dean shrugged in return before crossing his arms. Waiting for civilians to get with the program was pretty standard.  
  
Chuck was staring blankly at the room. “I just wrote this,” he said. “I wrote myself, at my house, confronted by my characters. I called myself the Voice of God.”  
  
“You already knew about this?” Dean said.  
  
“I didn’t know it was real!” He looked up at them. “And only douches write themselves into the story. But it was never going to be published, so I figured it didn’t matter.”  
  
“You kept writing?” Sam asked. “Even after they stopped printing?”  
  
“Yeah. I kind of… had to. There are the headaches and the dreams, and it doesn’t stop until I write it down.” Chuck slumped back on the couch. “So this is real. All of it.”  
  
“Yup.”  
  
“Oh, God.”  
  
“Cas thought you might be able to help with that,” Dean said. “You don’t happen to know where God is, do you?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“What about Lilith?” Sam said. “Do you know where she is? What she’s doing?”  
  
“I haven’t seen Lilith since Dean went to Hell.” Chuck shook his head again in disbelief. “All the horrible things that have happened to you— You went to _Hell_. Lilith is _real_. There are angels and demons, and the Apocalypse is actually happening. Like right now.”  
  
“Yup,” Dean said again.  
  
Chuck stood up. “I need a drink.”  
  
He stood and poured himself a large whiskey, quickly downing it.  
  
“Do you know why we’re here?” Sam asked.  
  
“You think I might know something that can help you stop the Apocalypse.”  
  
“Cas says you know everything.”  
  
“I only know what I’ve seen,” Chuck said. “But yeah, when I see it, I see everything.”  
  
“Everything?” Sam asked, looking a bit uneasy.  
  
Chuck shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah?”  
  
Dean frowned, suspicious. “You got something to say, Sam?”  
  
Sam focused on Chuck. “If you see everything, what’s coming up next?”  
  
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”  
  
“Do you want the world to end?” Dean asked.  
  
“Look,” Sam said. “Just, give us an idea, maybe? If we can get ahead of Lilith, maybe we can stop this.”  
  
Chuck turned to a messy desk, fumbling with some papers. “This was so much easier before you were real,” he muttered. He picked up some pages and put his glasses on. Then he hesitated. “Are you _sure_ about this?”  
  
“Yes.” He and Sam said it at the same time.  
  
“Okay.” Chuck shuffled through the papers. “This is only a rough draft, but it looks like there’s a thing with a siren coming up next. Uh, it’s not who you think it is.”  
  
“Who is it?” Dean said.  
  
“Wait,” Sam said. “What if we try to change something and it gets worse? We don’t know exactly how this works.”  
  
“So why are we even here?”  
  
“I’m just saying, maybe we should save this stuff for Lilith, seals, something important. Not the crap we’ve been doing our whole lives.”  
  
Dean turned that over in his head. “Yeah, okay.”  
  
Sam looked back at Chuck. “Nothing about Lilith? At all?”  
  
“Not yet. Sorry.”  
  
“You see anything about her, you have to call us,” Sam said, writing a number on one of Chuck’s papers. “Will you do that?”  
  
“Yeah. Um, sure.”  
  
Chuck still looked shaken by the whole situation. Dean supposed that finding out the world was ending would do that to a guy, especially one who seemed as nervous as Chuck.  
  
“We wouldn’t ask if we didn’t need you, Chuck,” Dean said. “You might have noticed that we haven’t been doing so well lately. And right now, you’re the only shot we’ve got.”  
  
\-----  
  
“He’s not, y’know.”  
  
“What?” Dean shut the Impala door.  
  
“He’s not the only shot we’ve got.”  
  
Dean didn’t say anything.  
  
“What do you think is going to happen if Chuck does find Lilith?” Sam said. “Huh? Then I’ll know where to go kill her. Or did you think this was going to change things? Did you think we were going to find something so I didn’t have to kill her?”  
  
“Sam…”  
  
“You think I’m going to go dark side, don’t you?”  
  
“Yes! Okay, yes.” Dean turned to look at him. “The way you’ve been acting lately? The way you’ve been running off to use your powers every chance you get?”  
  
Sam exhaled loudly, but didn’t meet Dean’s eyes.  
  
“Well?” Dean said.  
  
“I have to, Dean! If this could stop the Apocalypse— Look at all the crap that’s already happened because I didn’t kill her earlier. You told me Zachariah said you were supposed to stop Lucifer. If I can do this, now, that will never happen. I need to do this.”  
  
“Damn it, Sam, you’re getting into this thing so deep you’re never gonna get out of it.”  
  
“I know what I’m doing.”  
  
“Like hell.”  
  
“Just because you don’t like it, doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with it.”  
  
Dean looked away, starting the Impala. After a moment, he said, “I’m worried about you, all right?”  
  
Sam stared straight ahead, his anger still a tangible thing. “Well, you don’t need to be.”

 

 

*****

 

 

It wasn’t entirely surprising that Sam disappeared after they stopped at a motel that night. The rest of the drive had been silent and tense, and Dean only managed not to keep talking by some extreme self-control.  
  
Dean stayed in the room only a few moments himself before deciding to go on a beer run. When he got back, he sat in the Impala before going inside. He supposed he should call Castiel and update him on the whole prophet thing.  
  
A quick phone call later, and Castiel was sitting in the car next to him.  
  
“We talked to Chuck,” Dean said.  
  
“And?”  
  
“He doesn’t know anything right now. Nothing about God, nothing about Lilith. But he’s gonna keep in touch. If he sees something big, maybe we can stop it.”  
  
Castiel shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way.”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“What the prophet has written can’t be unwritten. As he has seen it, so it shall come to pass.”  
  
Dean stared at him, incredulous. “You’re telling me that anything he warns us about can’t be stopped?”  
  
“It’s divine prophecy,” Castiel said gravely. “It will happen.”  
  
“Then what was the point in talking to him?”  
  
“I assumed that since Gabriel went to the trouble of alerting you to the prophet’s existence, there would be a lead worth pursing, perhaps about God’s location.”  
  
Dean grinned. “You know what they say about assuming.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“That it makes an—never mind. Man, I don’t think Gabriel is the one to look at for anything solid. The bastard spends all his time screwing with people.”  
  
Castiel looked down. Neither of them said anything, and there was a minute of silence.  
  
Dean broke it. “But I think you’re wrong.”  
  
“About what?”  
  
“About Chuck not being able to tip us off. He’s already written himself into the story. He’s not just writing it anymore—he’s part of it. If he sees himself telling us something, doesn’t that mean we’re supposed to stop it?”  
  
“The prophecies are the Word of God.”  
  
“So?” Dean asked. “You’re the one always going on about God’s plan. Hey, maybe God really plans ahead. Maybe he gave us the prophet so we’d know the plan.”  
  
Castiel paused, looking out the windshield. “That logic is very human. I wouldn’t have considered it.”  
  
“Look, I know we’re still up a creek without a paddle, but at least the fucking paddle’s floating nearby. Dude, you were the one who thought we’d find an answer. I’m not saying we should get our hopes up, but this is more than I expected we’d get.”  
  
Castiel turned toward him.  
  
“And I’m counting that as a win for today,” Dean finished. “So, you sticking around for a while, or do you have somewhere you need to be?”  
  
“I have nowhere to be.”  
  
“Okay, then.” Dean settled back in his seat and reached for one of the beers he’d bought. “Y’know, we should really do this sometime when the world’s not about to end.”  
  
“Agreed.”

*****

  
  
Two weeks later, Castiel showed up to tell them about a seal that was about to break.  
  
“A seal?” Dean said. “An actual seal? What’s the point? We can’t save enough.”  
  
“This isn’t about prevention,” Castiel said. “It’s strategic. If even one seal is stopped from falling, that buys time.”  
  
Sam was nodding. “Even a week more could give us what we need to find Lilith.”  
  
“Yeah, all right,” Dean said. “So where’s it at?”  
  
“Greybull, Wyoming. People have stopped dying.”  
  
“They’ve stopped dying?” Sam said. “This is bad?”  
  
“When they should be, yes. We have reason to believe that reapers have been captured.”  
  
“We?” Dean asked.  
  
“Anna has been listening when she can. We know that the killing of two reapers under the solstice moon is a seal.”  
  
“The solstice is tonight,” Sam said.  
  
Dean shook his head. “It is so nerdy that you just know that.”  
  
“We can’t make it in time.”  
  
“I can take you,” Castiel said. “Get what you need.”  
  
Dean realized Castiel meant he was going to take them right _now_. “Okay,” he said, clapping his hands together. “Let’s go deal with some demons.”  
  
\-----  
  
As they made their way through the town, Dean was struck with the idea that they’d never been on a case and had Castiel actually help them. Maybe this would be easy.  
  
However, that idea was forgotten when Castiel abruptly stopped and said, “I won’t be able to go any farther.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“That building,” he said, pointing down the street, “has warding on it.”  
  
“I don’t see anything.”  
  
“It’s not visible to you.”  
  
Dean surveyed the street. “That’s where they are, huh?” He smirked. “Keeping reapers locked in a funeral home. Nice.”  
  
“Except that we can’t see the reapers,” Sam said. “And now Castiel can’t get in. Isn’t there a way to get the warding off the building?”  
  
“Not by your hand.”  
  
“Great,” Dean said. “So we won’t be able to see the reapers we’re supposed to save, you can’t help us, and the demons are already in there. We’re down to rock salt and dumb luck.”  
  
“Leave the demons to me,” Sam said, like that was that.  
  
Dean’s jaw clenched.  
  
Sam started across the street. “You coming?”  
  
“Goddamn it.”  
  
Getting inside the funeral home was almost too easy. On the other hand, since the demons had angel-proofing up, maybe they figured they were covered.  
  
He and Sam started in. The main room was empty, though there was a large symbol drawn on the floor that resembled a devil’s trap. Sam’s eyes fell on it at the same time Dean’s did.  
  
“Reaper trap?” Sam whispered.  
  
Dean shrugged.  
  
“We should break it.” Sam moved forward, bending down to scrape the paint away.  
  
A demon suddenly grabbed him from behind.  
  
Dean yelled as Sam was dragged backward, but he found his own arms caught as he was pulled back himself.  
  
“I must say, I didn’t expect to see you here, Dean.”  
  
Dean felt a chill run down his spine. “Alastair.”  
  
Alastair stepped out of the shadows; he was in a different body, but Dean knew it was him.  
  
“Though I did hope we’d run into each other again,” Alastair said. He walked forward, playing with a scythe in his hand. “They’ve got me up here breaking seals. Keeping me from my real work downstairs.” He smiled. “But for you, I’ll make time to catch up. I just have to take care of one little thing first.”  
  
It was Sam who spoke. “No, you don’t.”  
  
The hold on Dean loosened as the demon behind him started coughing. Sam’s face was tight in concentration. Then the two demons were nothing but smoke pouring out of mouths. When it was done, Sam looked back at Alastair, smug and satisfied.  
  
Dean felt relieved and sick all at the same time. The ease that Sam exorcised the demons with was nothing to how he had been struggling before.  
  
“That was very good,” Alastair said, a smile still playing over his features.  
  
“Yeah? Just wait for the encore.” Sam raised his hand toward Alastair.  
  
Nothing happened. Sam’s face started to twitch as he frowned.  
  
“But next time,” Alastair said, “take out the heavy hitter first.”  
  
He raised a hand, throwing them both across the room. Sam hit the wall. Dean skidded into several stacks of folded up chairs, some of which came down on top of him.  
  
Alastair raised his scythe and started chanting an incantation.  
  
Sam was already on his feet, moving toward the symbol again. He only got halfway there before Alastair threw him back a second time.  
  
Alastair brought the scythe down, and there was a flash of light. One reaper down. Alastair moved, raising the scythe again and starting to chant.  
  
Dean frantically looked around the room. His eyes focused on the chandelier hanging directly above the trap. Without thinking twice, he pulled out his gun and took aim at the point on the ceiling where the chain was fixed in.  
  
He emptied the clip with rapid shots, and the fixture fell.  
  
Alastair stopped chanting, but there was no other difference in the room. Dean glanced at Sam as they both stood.  
  
“Now you’ve gone and ruined the party,” Alastair said, his mouth twisting. “But that’s all right. I’d rather relive old times. Though I must say, having your brother here ruins it.”  
  
“Screw you.”  
  
“Not quite as intimate,” he said, fingering the blade as he walked up to Dean. Then he put it away. “I suppose I’ll have to go for quantity, not quality.”  
  
With that, he struck. A blow landed across Dean’s face, followed by another, then another. Dean struggled to remain upright; he could hear Sam shouting his name.  
  
He saw Sam move toward them with a fire poker, but another demon had appeared to keep him from getting to them. Sam was yelling at the air: “Break the warding! Break the warding!”  
  
Alastair smashed his fist into Dean’s jaw. “It was such a shame our time got cut short. You were just starting to get the hang of it.” Another blow landed.  
  
Dean was past the point of fighting back. He had been since the beginning—every strike Alastair made was crushing, designed to cause maximum damage. He lost his footing.  
  
When he didn’t get up, Alastair picked him up by the throat, raising him into the air. “You can always come back, Dean,” he said, squeezing Dean’s airway shut. “I’ll show you how to do it proper this time.”  
  
The world blurred.  
  
Over Alastair’s shoulder, Dean saw Sam shove the fire poker into the demon’s neck. He pulled it out and then pressed his mouth to the gaping wound.  
  
Castiel appeared at that exact second, his eyes zeroing in on Dean. He pulled Alastair off, but the next moment, Alastair was flung away from both of them, thudding into the opposite wall. Dean fell to the floor. Castiel hauled him up, hooking his hands under Dean’s arms and lifting him until he was on his feet. But Dean was beyond being able to stand; Castiel took all of his weight, his arms around Dean’s back the only things keeping him upright.  
  
Dean couldn’t look away from Sam.  
  
He was standing, lips bloody, hand raised, eyes trained on Alastair.  
  
“Think you can exorcise me too, boy?”  
  
“No,” Sam said. “You, I’m going to kill.”  
  
That was the last thing Dean heard before the world went black.

*****

  
  
He woke up to the slow beeping of hospital machines.  
  
Sam was sitting beside his bed.  
  
He looked worried and relieved and nervous all at the same time. It took Dean a moment, but then he remembered Sam drinking demon blood.  
  
Sam just watched him. Neither of them said anything.  
  
“I know you saw me,” Sam finally said. “And I know you’re gonna blow up about it. So, just getter better and we can have it out. You can take a swing if you want. Just, get better.”  
  
“I’m not gonna say anything,” Dean croaked. “I’m done, Sam. I’m just done.”  
  
Dean closed his eyes. A minute later, he was slipping out of it again.  
  
\-----  
  
The next time he cracked his eyes open, Castiel was there.  
  
He had pulled the chair close to the bed, at an angle where he was facing Dean. He met Dean’s eyes. “I’m sorry.”  
  
“You didn’t know I was gonna get beaten to a pulp. Risks of the job.”  
  
“Still.” Castiel looked down. “I regret bringing this to your attention. I didn’t know it was Alastair.” He paused. “I spoke briefly with the reaper you saved. She broke the warding. She knew you.”  
  
Dean wheezed. “I don’t know any reapers, Cas.”  
  
“That does not mean that she doesn’t know you.”  
  
“So we saved the seal?”  
  
Castiel nodded. “Yes.”  
  
“Well, that’s all that matters.”  
  
“No.”  
  
If Dean could have laughed, he would have. “What happened to the bigger picture?”  
  
Castiel held his gaze. “It’s changed.”  
  
“Yeah, I figured. Doesn’t change the fact that we’re going down with the ship.”  
  
“I will, if necessary,” Castiel said. “But I’d prefer that you didn’t.”  
  
Dean didn’t reply. Partly because he had no reply and partly because his mouth felt like sandpaper.  
  
“There any water?”  
  
Castiel stood, reaching for something behind Dean. The next moment, he was moving to hold a cup to Dean’s lips.  
  
For a split second, Dean froze. That wasn’t exactly what he’d meant. In fact, that was the kind of crap he balked at having Sam do for him, even when he was like this. But Castiel was just standing there like there was nothing awkward or uncomfortable about it.  
  
Screw it. His arms felt like they had lead weights attached. Dean tipped his chin up and parted his lips. Castiel held the cup, carefully tilting it as Dean slowly drank.  
  
“Another?” he asked, when Dean was finished.  
  
Dean looked up. “I’m good.”  
  
Castiel didn’t immediately sit in the chair again. Instead, his eyes swept over Dean. “I wish that I could heal you. It would have been the work of an instant when I had Heaven’s power at my disposal.”  
  
“Hey, I’ve had it this bad before. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t say no to some healing if it was on the table, but I’ll make it.”  
  
Castiel sat down.  
  
“Guess I messed up all your hard work from before.” Dean chuckled, a dry raspy noise that he immediately regretted trying to make. He continued, saying, “I noticed, y’know—after Hell. Not a scar, not a mark on me. Like I was brand new.”  
  
“I saw no point to recreating damages.”  
  
There was a silence.  
  
“So, sixty-four dollar question: Where’s Sam?”  
  
“He went for food.” Castiel’s brow creased. “I assumed he wouldn’t want to leave you, actually. Though I assured him that you wouldn’t be left alone.”  
  
“Things aren’t so great between me and Sammy right now.” Dean closed his eyes. “What happened at the funeral home? After?”  
  
“Sam killed Alastair. I brought you to the hospital immediately.”  
  
Dean looked at him. “Sam’s powers—he’s been drinking demon blood. That’s what he’s been doing this whole time. Man, I didn’t think it could be worse than I thought, but it is.”  
  
Castiel was quiet.  
  
“Now I know why Ruby’s around so damn much—he needs her fucking blood. What’s this even going to do to him, Cas?”  
  
“Such an occurrence is unprecedented. But if he continues, it could very well transform him forever.”  
  
“Are you saying Sam’s not gonna be human anymore?”  
  
“I saw him kill Alastair.” Castiel regarded him stoically. “His strength increases relative to the quantity of blood he consumes. It’s likely that consuming the amount it would take to kill Lilith would change him.”  
  
Dean exhaled slowly. “Well, I’m not gonna let that happen.”

*****

  
  
Sam tiptoed around him in the hospital the next day, clearly waiting for the inevitable blowup. Dean didn’t give him one.  
  
He gave him a call from Bobby instead.  
  
Hanging up the phone, Sam said, “Bobby’s got something he needs us for.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Apocalypse related.” Sam shrugged. “It sounded important.”  
  
Dean heaved himself out of bed. “Think we can get out of here?”  
  
Sam took one look at him and said, “I’m driving.”  
  
\-----  
  
They were on their way to Bobby’s when Dean’s phone rang.  
  
“Yeah?” he answered.  
  
“Dean? It’s, uh, Chuck. Remember me?”  
  
“Dude, I remember you,” Dean said, rolling his eyes.  
  
“I’ve, um, well, there’s some stuff you should maybe know.”  
  
“ _And_?”  
  
“It’s not exactly—you’re not going to like it. It might be better in person?”  
  
“Chuck, it’s not a good time.”  
  
Sam was watching him out of the corner of his eye.  
  
“Do you know where we’re going?” Dean asked Chuck. “And why?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Then you understand.”  
  
“What’s happening?” Sam asked. “Does he know something?”  
  
“No.”  
  
Before Dean knew what was happening, Sam had grabbed the phone out of his hand. “Chuck? What’s going on?” A pause. “No, tell me now.” Another pause, and Sam’s face tightened. “Fine, we’re coming.”  
  
He hung up the phone and slowed down, pulling the car onto a wide shoulder and making a U-turn.  
  
“What the hell are you doing?” Dean asked.  
  
“Chuck has something on Lilith.”  
  
“What about Bobby?”  
  
“It can wait.”  
  
“You know that, do you?”  
  
“If you want to go to Bobby’s, you can have the car,” Sam said, not looking away from the road. “But I’m going after Lilith.”  
  
“I’m not letting you out of my sight.”  
  
“And here it comes. I wondered how long it would take. You’re angry with me? Disappointed in me? Scared I’m going bad?”  
  
“Try all of the above.”  
  
“You’re just mad that I’m getting the job done. That I’m strong enough to do this by myself.”  
  
“Strong?” Dean laughed. “In case you haven’t noticed, you’re not exactly doing this on your own.”  
  
“What’s that supposed to mean?”  
  
“You’re _drinking demon blood_ , Sam!”  
  
“Because I have to! To get strong enough to kill Lilith!”  
  
“Yeah? You took Ruby’s knife off Alastair’s body. We don’t need your powers anymore.” Dean narrowed his eyes. “Or is that what pisses you off?”  
  
“What’s that supposed to mean?”  
  
“You’ve been stuck on this so long, you just can’t stand not to see it through to the end. You can’t admit that you’re in over your head and this is fucked up beyond belief.”  
  
“I know what I’m doing, Dean.” Sam tightened his grip on the steering wheel. After another moment, he bit out, “So are we both going to Chuck’s?”  
  
“Sure, why not,” Dean growled.  
  
Silence fell, and neither one of them did anything to break it.  
  
Dean was fuming, but unless they stopped and split up, he was stuck. And the last thing he was going to do was let Sam go off on his own right now.  
  
There was no point in going to Bobby’s if he couldn’t get Sam there. He started to wish that he’d just asked Castiel to zap Sam to Bobby’s. But he hadn’t really thought getting there would be a problem; they went to Bobby’s all the time. And Sam was his responsibility.  
  
Eventually, Dean began wondering what the hell Chuck actually had to say. Whatever it was, he wanted to hear it.  
  
Many tense hours later, they pulled up in front of Chuck’s house. It was long past dark, but Chuck’s lights were still on.  
  
Sam cut the ignition and got out. “You coming?”  
  
Dean didn’t answer, but opened his own door and started after Sam.  
  
Chuck opened the front door before they got there, gesturing them inside. He was wearing the same tattered bathrobe. Dean wondered if the guy ever got dressed or if he just sat around writing prophecy in his underwear.  
  
“Why make the effort?” Chuck said. “If the world’s ending, I’m gonna be comfortable. And yeah, I knew you were thinking that.”  
  
“What did you see?” Sam asked, getting straight to the point.  
  
Chuck sat down on the couch, and Dean took a seat in a chair. Sam remained standing.  
  
“Um, there are several things. The first is that Lilith is going to find you tonight.”  
  
“What? How?”  
  
“I don’t know. I just see that she’s coming to make a deal with you.”  
  
“A _deal_?” Dean said.  
  
Sam glared at him. “Dean, I’m not going to make a deal with Lilith!”  
  
“I don’t know, Sam, you seem to be the demon groupie these days.”  
  
Chuck looked down. “Right, you just found out about the blood.”  
  
“Yeah, thanks for the heads up on that, by the way.”  
  
“Don’t yell at me,” Chuck said peevishly. “You think I like having you two star in my dreams? Having to write down everything you do? I used to have a life. Sort of.”  
  
“What else about Lilith?” Sam pressed.  
  
“Um, she needs to die.”  
  
Dean rolled his eyes. “We know that.”  
  
“No, Lilith _needs_ to die.” Chuck fidgeted. “She’s the sixty-sixth seal. When she dies, Lucifer escapes. She wants to die; she’s planning on it.”  
  
“So we can’t kill her?” Sam sputtered. “At all?”  
  
“Not once sixty-five seals have broken.”  
  
Sam’s jaw ticked. “Could we kill her before that? If we killed her before that, would anything happen?”  
  
Chuck shook his head. “No.”  
  
“Perfect,” Dean said, throwing his hands up. “An even tighter race against the clock. Just what we need. How many seals have fallen?”  
  
“Uh, sixty-one.” Chuck cleared his throat, looking at Sam awkwardly. “There’s, um, something else.” He glanced down, rummaging between the couch cushions and pulling out a bottle of something cheap and alcoholic.  
  
Sam crossed his arms, impatient.  
  
“Seriously, Chuck, spit it out,” Dean said.  
  
Chuck took a long drink, then blurted, “Ruby’s been working with Lilith.”  
  
Dean raised his eyebrows. He could feel the beginning of a smirk forming on his lips. “ _Really_.”  
  
Sam was shaking his head. “No.”  
  
“I’m sorry, Sam,” Chuck said.  
  
“Dude, don’t apologize, this is the best news we’ve had all week.”  
  
“Shut up, Dean!” Sam paced the length of the room before turning back to Chuck, who winced. “She—she can’t. She wouldn’t. You must have missed something.”  
  
“I wish I had. Really, I hate writing betrayals. Er.” Chuck looked at the floor.  
  
“But she wants Lilith dead!” Sam said, sounding desperate. “Ruby wants Lilith dead.”  
  
“Apparently Lilith wants Lilith dead,” Dean said. “Makes sense to me.”  
  
Sam shook his head again. “Then all this time, she—” He cut himself off.  
  
Dean stood, stepping in front of Sam. “Look, man, I’m not gonna say I told you so. I get that this must suck for you, but we’ve got other things we need to concentrate on right now.”  
  
“I need to find Ruby.”  
  
“What? Sam, no. Didn’t you hear what Chuck just said? The guy knows every fucking detail of our lives, and you think he’s gonna fizzle out now?”  
  
Dean waved a hand at Chuck, who seemed to be doing his best to sink into the cushions of the couch.  
  
“I need to hear it from her, okay?” Sam said.  
  
“She’s a lying demon bitch. You think she’s just gonna come out and tell you?”  
  
“Fine! You were right, is that what you want to hear? Ruby was using me this whole time! But I’m still going to kill Lilith, and I need her to do that!”  
  
“Are you listening to yourself?” Dean shouted. “ _We_ can kill Lilith, Sam! You and me!”  
  
“Dean, look at you. Do you think you can kill anything right now? You’re barely out of the hospital. We don’t have time to wait.” Sam’s voice hardened. “I know what I have to do, but I have to do it alone.”  
  
“Damn it, Sam, this is what they want!”  
  
“I know,” Sam said, his expression cold. “And that’s why I have to do this. I’m gonna take this crap and give them exactly what they wanted in the worst way possible.”  
  
With that, he turned and strode out of the room, Chuck’s front door slamming behind him.  
  
Dean spun on Chuck. “Thanks for the help there,” he snapped.  
  
“I wasn’t in this part,” Chuck said miserably.  
  
Dean headed for the door himself.  
  
As he stepped onto the porch, he heard the Impala roar to life. He swore, starting to run. Sam had been driving. Sam still had the fucking keys.  
  
By the time Dean was in the yard, the Impala’s tires were screeching as Sam floored it.  
  
“Goddamn it!”  
  
When the car’s taillights had vanished down the darkened road, Dean turned around to find Chuck nervously standing on the steps.  
  
“Did you know about this?” he demanded.  
  
“Maybe?”  
  
“Great.” Now he’d lost Sam and had no way to find him. “Do you know where he went?”  
  
Chuck shook his head.  
  
“Chuck—”  
  
“I don’t! I really don’t!” he said, taking a step back. “Not yet, anyway.”  
  
Dean moved forward. “You see him, you’d better call me.”  
  
“Okay,” Chuck squeaked.  
  
Dean sighed. “Is it true that Cas can’t come here?”  
  
“Um, probably?”  
  
“Super.” Without another word, Dean turned and started walking. He went in the direction that Sam had gone.  
  
Not that it mattered. Sam could have gone anywhere from there.  
  
He went half a mile before he called Castiel. There wasn’t any answer. Of all the times for Castiel to be outside his coverage zone.  
  
Dean called Sam repeatedly. As expected, Sam didn’t answer. He’d more than likely turned his phone off.  
  
After another half mile or so, Dean stopped to sit on a city bench in the deserted downtown area. The businesses were long closed, and besides the occasional car on the road, he was alone. He couldn’t stand doing nothing, but he had no fucking clue where to go from here. He could steal a car, but that wouldn’t do a damn thing when it came to finding Sam.  
  
Dean leaned back on the bench, slowly stretching. Alastair had done a number on him. He hated to admit it, but he needed a breather before he did whatever he was going to do next.  
  
Whatever that was. He figured Sam had left an hour ago, maybe.  
  
His phone rang.  
  
“Hello?”  
  
“Dean?” a whispered voice said. “It’s Chuck.”  
  
“What now?”  
  
“Sam’s still in town.”  
  
Dean sat up straight. “Where?”  
  
“2364 Detroit Avenue.”  
  
“Chuck, you’re awesome.”  
  
“Be careful.” Chuck’s voice dropped further. “I think the angels are listening in.”  
  
“To this?”  
  
“To my brain.” Chuck hung up.  
  
Dean stood. All he needed to do to locate Sam was get to a place with a phonebook so he could find out where Detroit Avenue was.  
  
He had gone several streets and just spotted a gas station when his phone rang again.  
  
It was Castiel.  
  
“Dean. I missed your call.”  
  
Dean looked at the nearest street sign. “We just left Chuck’s. I’m at 71st and Stratton.”  
  
Castiel appeared beside him. “What did the prophet say?”  
  
“A lot. But long story short—Lilith has to die tonight. Sam’s gonna kill her, and I need to get there before he does it.”  
  
Castiel frowned. “You wish to stop him from killing Lilith, then.”  
  
“If him killing Lilith means he has to crank up the hell-blood regimen, then yeah, I want to stop him. I’m not gonna let my brother destroy himself, not even to save the world. Not on my watch. He’s not gonna do this.” Dean pulled out Ruby’s knife. “I am. I’ll kill Lilith.”  
  
“You’re still injured.” Castiel’s voice was neutral, but his expression was troubled.  
  
“Well, then, I’m probably gonna die. You got a problem with that?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“You still coming?”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
Dean smiled, surprising himself. “Thanks, Cas.”  
  
“Where’s Sam?”  
  
“Here in town. 2364 Detroit Avenue.”  
  
Castiel touched his shoulder, and then they were standing in a motel parking lot. Even in the dark, Dean could tell that this was the kind of place that charged by the hour.  
  
The Impala was parked off to itself at the very end of the building.  
  
Dean started toward it without a word. He could feel Castiel following him.  
  
Once at the door, Dean paused, tightening his grip on the knife. He didn’t know what exactly he was going to find on the other side. The doorknob turned under his hand and Dean slowly edged the door open.  
  
He froze at the sight that greeted him.  
  
Sam was standing over the table. Ruby was lying on it. Her eyes were black, and her head and shoulders dangled over the edge. She was held in place by no devil’s trap that Dean could see. Her throat was slit, and Sam’s lips were covered in blood.  
  
“Sam?” Dean asked.  
  
“You shouldn’t be here.” Sam wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his shirt. “Lilith is coming any minute! I burned the hex bags.”  
  
Castiel shut the door behind them.  
  
“What did you do?” Dean asked. He couldn’t care less about Ruby, but his stomach dropped when he realized that he was too late to prevent the only thing he’d wanted to stop.  
  
Ruby twitched. Sam raised a hand in her direction, and she flickered with light from within before going slack and falling back against the table, dead.  
  
Dean eyed Ruby’s body. “Sam, how much blood did you drink?”  
  
Sam wouldn’t look at him.  
  
“Sam!”  
  
“I did what I had to do, Dean!” Sam said. He sounded so sure of himself. “I’m going to kill Lilith, and I’m going to do it tonight. I have to fix this!”  
  
“No, you don’t, Sam!”  
  
“It was my fault. _I_ have to make it right!”  
  
“Sam—”  
  
The door to the room opened, and a blonde woman walked in.  
  
Dean’s eyes flicked to Sam, who looked cautious, but confused.  
  
She smiled at the silence that greeted her. “Don’t you recognize me, Sam? It’s me, all grown up.”  
  
Then she casually moved a hand, flinging Dean into the wall and pinning him there. Castiel moved toward her, but a string of words left her lips that sent him crashing to the floor, his face clenched in pain.  
  
Lilith looked at Sam. “I see we have some guests. I did want to talk to you alone, but oh well. I suppose my offer concerns your brother, too.”  
  
At that moment, she caught sight of Ruby’s body on the table. Lilith’s face drained of color.  
  
Sam gave her a self-satisfied look. “Weren’t expecting that, were you?”  
  
“I came here to make a deal with you,” Lilith said, her voice not quite controlled. “To end this.”  
  
Sam laughed coldly. “We’re going to end it, all right.”  
  
He raised his hand, and Lilith was thrown into the dresser. Her eyes rolled back as Sam held her in place.  
  
“No!” Lilith shouted. Her face was a mixture of outrage and disbelief. “No! You shouldn’t be this strong.”  
  
Sam tightened his fist. “I had some help with that.”  
  
“This isn’t supposed to happen! It’s not time yet!”  
  
Dean, released from Lilith’s hold, started towards them. “Sammy!”  
  
Sam didn’t listen. All his attention was focused on Lilith, who was fighting with everything she had.  
  
The next second, white light started to fill the room.  
  
“It’s the archangel!” Castiel was picking himself up from the floor. “He’s coming to stop it!”  
  
Dean gaped at him, uncomprehending. Then it hit him. Heaven wanted the Apocalypse, and if Lilith died now, it would never come.  
  
Lilith was still writhing under Sam’s power, but she was laughing. “You’re going to have to do better than that.”  
  
She screamed in earnest as Sam advanced, turning his hand. The light and noise continued to rise.  
  
Dean leapt forward, diving toward Lilith and burying the knife in her heart. A dull glow flashed in her body before she fell over lifeless.  
  
Sam’s eyes were black. “Sam! Sammy!” Dean lunged at him, shaking Sam until his eyes returned to normal.  
  
The room was shaking around them—the light almost too white to see around. Dean had a death grip on Sam.  
  
Castiel was on his other side. “Raphael won’t stop!”  
  
“Lilith’s dead! What does he think he can do now?”  
  
“Deliver retribution.”  
  
“Then let’s get out of here,” Dean yelled.  
  
“He’ll follow! I won’t be able to evade him.” Castiel was suddenly directly in front of him. “Dean, I can’t come with you.”  
  
Before Dean could even open his mouth, Castiel’s palm slammed against his forehead—  
  
And the world was dark and quiet.  
  
Dean still had a hold of Sam, who finally seemed to be coming back to himself. He realized they were inside somewhere. Dean fumbled in the blackness, tripping over a piece of furniture and almost ending up on the floor.  
  
The next moment, the lights were on, and he was staring down the barrel of a shotgun.  
  
Bobby glared, but took the gun off him once he saw who he was aiming at.  
  
“Boy, what the hell are you doing?”  
  
“I think we might have just saved the world.”

*****

  
  
The Impala appeared in Bobby’s driveway the next morning. The last time Dean had seen it, it had been parked in front of the motel he’d found Sam at. There were candy wrappers littering the floorboard.  
  
Other than that, nothing happened. Dean was honestly afraid to call Chuck again, given that Heaven was wiretapping his line, so to speak.  
  
He knew they’d killed Lilith. That counted as a win, as far as he was concerned. But he didn’t know how much fallout was going to come from that, and the uncertainty kept him on edge.  
  
There was also no sign of Castiel.  
  
Dean told himself that Castiel was just staying gone so that he wouldn’t lead the archangel to them. At the same time, he doubted that Castiel was still leading Raphael on a chase.  
  
Dean called Castiel more times than he cared to admit. There was never an answer. He couldn’t get the image of Castiel’s face out of his head—that last look as Castiel had stayed and sent them to safety.  
  
Either Castiel had gotten away, or he hadn’t. But Dean didn’t want to think about it.  
  
Mostly, he just watched Sam, who had been quiet and closed off since he’d woken up that morning.  
  
It wasn’t until lunch that Sam sat down across from him at the table and said, “Let’s have it out.”  
  
“Have what out?”  
  
“Dude. We killed Lilith, but I know you’re still mad about what I did.”  
  
Dean still wasn’t sure if he himself had killed Lilith, or if Sam’s powers had overcome her the instant before he sank the knife in. Hell, maybe they’d done it at the same time. Not that it mattered now.  
  
“It’s done, Sammy. Let’s just leave it at that.”  
  
“You don’t have anything to say? Not even about Ruby?”  
  
“What, besides ‘I told you so’? That you never should have trusted her, that she was up to something else all along? But I can’t say that the bitch didn’t get what she deserved.”  
  
Sam looked down. “Last night, I told her I wanted to go after Lilith. She said I wasn’t ready. I asked, ‘Why, because only sixty-one of the seals have broken and it’s not time yet?’ It was only for a split second, but she just got this _look_ on her face, and I knew it was true.”  
  
“So you ganked her.”  
  
“I used her.” Sam gave him a somber look. “I was going to kill her anyway, but I needed all the blood I could get to take out Lilith.”  
  
Dean shook his head. “Yeah, about that. Do you even know what that did to you? How—how _not you_ you were right then?”  
  
“I had to.”  
  
“Sam, your eyes went black.”  
  
Sam’s mouth opened in surprise. Then he looked down again. “I… I didn’t know.”  
  
“You scared the hell out of me, man. The idea that you could actually become—” Dean cut himself off. “There’s no more Lilith. That means you’re done, right? That this—” Dean gestured vaguely at Sam. “—is done. Finished.”  
  
“Yes, Dean! I was only doing to it to kill Lilith. It’s over, it’s done, and I’m through.”

*****

  
  
Dean started leaving messages on Castiel’s voicemail. Mostly quick, annoyed messages telling him to answer his damn phone or show up already.  
  
Whenever Castiel picked up his phone again, maybe he’d figure a few things out. Like the fact that humans expected you to check in after something like that.  
  
Dean refused to think about the idea that Castiel might never hear his messages.

*****

  
  
By that night, Sam was twitchy. Really twitchy. Dean noticed, but didn’t comment. Though he did switch to watching Sam more than watching the TV. Still, Sam didn’t say anything, so neither did he.  
  
Dean eventually fell asleep on the couch.  
  
He was woken later by a loud crash. He jumped up automatically, scanning the room.  
  
Sam was in midair, braced against a bookcase and held up by nothing. His arms were flailing and he was shaking. The next second, he was ricocheting off the walls as he spun along the side of the room.  
  
Bobby came down at the noise, gun in hand. He froze when he saw what was going on. “The hell?”  
  
“Help me stop him!” Dean shouted. He made a move to grab Sam’s midsection.  
  
Together, they got Sam to the ground. Sam was still shuddering; it was like he didn’t even see them.  
  
“Sam. Sam!” Dean grabbed Sam’s face. “What do we do?”  
  
“We’ve got to tie him down so he doesn’t hurt himself. Or us.” Bobby held Sam’s arm down as it surged upward. “We don’t have a choice.”  
  
They managed to get Sam down to the panic room. Dean searched Sam’s face as Bobby secured his arms, but his brother’s stare was vacant.  
  
When it was done, Bobby herded Dean out of the room and shut the door.  
  
“What’s doing this, Bobby?”  
  
“I think—I think he did it to himself,” Bobby said slowly, looking at Dean. “You told me the demon blood would have side effects. Have to say, I didn’t think it would be like this.”  
  
“What it’s gonna do to him?” Dean asked. “How long is it gonna go on? Is he gonna be all right?”  
  
“Hey, this don’t exactly come with a guidebook.” Bobby shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. But I’ll see what I can dig up.”  
  
Bobby went upstairs. Dean sat down against the wall.  
  
Bobby came back later to say that he had nothing to go on. They didn’t even know what was happening exactly, only that the demon blood was taking its toll. Whether it was because of the massive amount that Sam had consumed to kill Lilith, or the fact that Sam had gotten too used to drinking it, they didn’t know. But the result was the same; it was destroying him.  
  
Dean settled in to wait. He wasn’t going anywhere.  
  
At one point, Dean thought Sam was talking to him, but it quickly became clear that Sam was talking to himself—talking to something only he could see and hear. He shouted sporadically at things that weren’t even there, and yelled as his body fought against the restraints.  
  
It went on for hours.  
  
Dean couldn’t stand to listen to him, but neither could he stand to go upstairs and pretend his brother wasn’t suffering. So he sat around the corner from the panic room door. He sat and he drank.  
  
He also kept calling Castiel, but never got him.  
  
The next time Dean went upstairs to take a leak, he raided Bobby’s cabinet for the ingredients to a summoning ritual. He was going to make Castiel show up and then tear him a new one for not having the decency to let them know he was alive.  
  
The basement was quiet when he went back down. Sam was sleeping, as far as he could see, though there was no telling when another spell would hit him. Dean went to the far end of the basement and set up the ritual on an old table.  
  
He did what he’d seen Anna do, then repeated the words of Enochian, adding Castiel’s name at the end. He threw in the match, and it was done.  
  
Only the silence of the basement greeted him.  
  
He knew that Castiel didn’t have to come the instant he was summoned—he hadn’t when Anna had done it. Though something told him that no matter how long he waited, Castiel would never appear.  
  
Deep down, he hadn’t expected anything to happen. But having to face up to it was different.  
  
Thinking of Anna, Dean quickly cleared the ritual and set up another one. He said the words with her name and threw in the match.  
  
She materialized instantly.  
  
“Do you know what happened?” Dean asked.  
  
“You stopped Lilith.”  
  
“Do you know what happened to Cas? Did he get away? Or dragged back to Heaven?”  
  
Anna looked down, and Dean knew. He knew what came with that sort of look.  
  
“I’m sorry,” she said. “He’s dead. Raphael killed him.”  
  
“Are you sure? How do you know?”  
  
“I felt it.” She hesitated. “Is there anything I can do?”  
  
“No.”  
  
Anna nodded. Then she was gone.  
  
Dean stood stock still for a moment. Then he swiped his hand across the table, sending everything smashing to the floor.  
  
The noise brought Bobby down the stairs. “What the hell’s going on?”  
  
“It doesn’t matter.”  
  
Dean started up the stairs himself.  
  
Something in his voice must have made Bobby back off, because he didn’t say anything else. When Dean took another bottle of liquor back to the basement with him, Bobby didn’t even raise an eyebrow.  
  
Dean settled back in his spot against the wall, opening the bottle and staring blankly ahead.  
  
Sam was going insane.  
  
He took a drink.  
  
His brother might not even make it back from this.  
  
He took a drink.  
  
Castiel had died because of him.  
  
He took a drink.  
  
His only real friend was dead.  
  
The bottle would be empty soon.

*****

  
  
Dean woke up the next morning feeling worse than he had ever felt. He wasn’t sure he was even properly hung-over yet; he still felt drunk. Glancing at his watch, he saw that he’d only slept a few hours. He managed to stand and drag himself along the wall to the panic room door.  
  
Looking inside, he saw Sam asleep on the cot. Sam’s chest rose and fell with steady breaths. He looked fine while asleep; Dean just wanted him to wake up and be fine.  
  
If Sam wasn’t fine, he didn’t know what to do. Dean stood in place, resting his forehead against the cold iron.  
  
The light bulb above him buzzed—once, then twice.  
  
Dean opened his eyes. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end as he sensed someone directly behind him.  
  
He spun around and nearly fell over from the vertigo. But it was the shock that had him leaning on the panic room door for support.  
  
Castiel was standing before him.  
  
“You—” Dean started, “You’re dead.”  
  
“I was, yes.”  
  
“No. You’re not real.” Dean’s head was spinning. Or maybe it was the room that was spinning. “You can’t be. You’re something else.”  
  
“I am myself. Though I understand your suspicion.”  
  
“Cas is dead. Anna said he was dead.” Dean shook his head, pointing at Castiel. “You can’t be alive. How can you be alive?”  
  
“I believe it was God.” He sounded more composed than someone who had just been resurrected had any right to be.  
  
“I thought you were dead, you son of a bitch. How long have you been back?”  
  
“Forty-seven seconds.” Castiel paused. “I wondered how you were.”  
  
Dean laughed. It was a stupid, undignified, drunken laugh. “You get brought back to life, and that’s the first thing you do, huh?”  
  
“Of course.” Castiel had a small smile on his face.  
  
Dean wobbled, almost losing his balance. But Castiel was there, steadying him before he fell. Dean ended up with an arm draped over Castiel’s shoulders and Castiel’s arm around his waist.  
  
“I thought you were dead,” Dean slurred.  
  
“I was.” Castiel seemed confused, like they had already covered this. His brow furrowed as he looked at Dean.  
  
Dean was too drunk to think of all the things he wanted to say, which was probably good, because he was drunk enough to say them. He focused on Castiel with some effort. “Don’t ever do that again.”

*

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


_Epilogue_

  
  
It was nightfall when Castiel appeared.  
  
Dean was sitting on the steps of Bobby’s back porch. He’d been expecting Castiel to show since yesterday.  
  
The evening was cold, but not biting enough to drive him inside yet. Castiel sat down next to him. The wooden steps were narrow, and Castiel’s shoulder touched his.  
  
“So is it over?” Dean asked.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Dean nodded. Chuck had said as much when he’d called earlier that week. The angels had gone back to Heaven. The demons had gone back to their usual sick activities.  
  
“Lucifer’s cage will never open,” Castiel said. “Angels no longer have business here. Anna verified that Michael believes the Apocalypse was unfulfilled for a reason.”  
  
Dean snorted. “Like maybe because they started it on purpose.”  
  
“He now waits on my Father’s word once more.” Castiel clasped his hands. “The others have returned to Heaven.”  
  
“So what about Anna? She go back?”  
  
“No. Though she managed to speak to a few who were sympathetic enough to converse with her. We know that Earth will be left in peace.”  
  
“Forever?”  
  
Castiel glanced at him. “Forever is a long time, Dean.”  
  
“But we’re not gonna hear from them again, right?”  
  
“You will not.”  
  
“I guess that’s about as good as we’re gonna get. Not a bad day at the office, all things considered.”  
  
There was a pause.  
  
“What will you do now?” Castiel asked.  
  
“The job.” Dean shrugged. “The world might not be ending, but there’s plenty of stuff that still needs taking care of. And me and Sam, that’s what we do. Sam seems good now. He’s himself again, at least. I’m not sure what will happen the next time he sees a demon, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”  
  
A silence fell between them, but it was companionable.  
  
Castiel looked into the night. “There is no longer a place for me in Heaven. Perhaps in time there will be again, but not now.”  
  
“Never found God, huh?”  
  
“He remains unaccounted for. But I believe that only He could have restored me.” Castiel paused. “I will always think that this world is His greatest creation.”  
  
Dean waited for the end to that thought, but it didn’t come. “And?”  
  
“Heaven may be my home, but remaining here is not a burden.” Castiel regarded him evenly. “I went to some lengths to do so after you initially freed me.”  
  
“Yeah, you always did like hanging around Earth.” Dean grinned. “Kinda hard to square that with being a servant of God, though.”  
  
Castiel frowned at him.  
  
“Dude, I’m just saying. The whole God thing is above my pay grade, but no way is taking in the sights or popping in to see me serving God.”  
  
“I remain a servant of God. But until He issues commands once more, there is nothing for me to do.” Castiel hesitated. “And I don’t believe He is displeased by my being on Earth.”  
  
“Hey, who knows. But I get it.” Dean chuckled. “If somebody just brought me back to life—” Dean broke off, suddenly aware that he couldn’t finish that sentence hypothetically.  
  
Castiel seemed to realize it. He looked amused. “Yes?”  
  
“Then I’d figure I was in good with the guy.” Dean shrugged, the corner of his mouth twisting up.  
  
Castiel almost smiled. For a moment, his complete attention was focused on Dean, and Dean was struck with the thought that he’d never seen Castiel so at ease.  
  
“Then I suppose I may do as I wish,” Castiel said.  
  
Dean grasped his meaning immediately. “You’re gonna show up all the damn time.” He bit back a grin. Instead, he nudged Castiel’s shoulder, hard.  
  
Castiel was unfazed. “I figure we’re good.”  
  
  
  
_—the end_


End file.
